


The Orphans who Remain

by Anonymous



Category: Cyteen Series - C. J. Cherryh, Saiyuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Azi, Clones, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Lawyers, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Non-Graphic Violence, Referenced Hakkai/Kanan, tape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:35:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29019813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Gen's life is on hold: his status as a rehabilitated petty criminal keeps him in an underpaid job, his family history keeps him waiting in an apartment for someone who may never come back. He doesn't expect things to change, but then he finds himself providing refuge for someone who seems to have had an equally raw deal.
Relationships: Cho Hakkai/Sha Gojyo
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	The Orphans who Remain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta-reader, Scribblemoose!

**Verbal Text from:**

**A QUESTION OF UNION**

**Union Civics Series: #3**

**Reseune Educational Publications: 9799-8734-3 approved for 80+**

_Novgorod has expanded greatly over the last century. We can clearly see how it has expended outwards, stretching down the Volga. The original warehouses have now become part of a area of civic development showing that Novgorod's history has elements in common with the history of cities throughout the centuries on other planets. Due to the development of rejuv, however, some of the original proprietors have lived to see their early industrial sites transformed and their families residing and working in the apartments and offices that now stand on the original sites._

_The precipitation towers now stand much further out from the growing city, and the area fit for human habitation becomes larger, year by year. If the weather is stable much of Novgorod is perfectly safe for the inhabitants to walk around out of doors without protective equipment. Even children may safely do so, as can be seen here: a class of young citizens, escorted by their instructors, are exiting the underground rail system in good order._

_Interviewer: May I ask where you are going with these children?_

_Instructor: This is an educational trip that fulfils part of the civics curriculum indicated for children between the ages of ten and twelve._

_Interviewer: Might I ask your designation and to whom you are contracted?_

_Instructor: Margot BM-2367. My contract is held by the Forward Together Educational Institute – if you might excuse me for a moment, sera – John, please give that to Sal so that he can dispose of it. It is not good behaviour to pick things up from the street - I apologise, sera, you were saying?_

_BM-2367 azi are a solid Beta class with many years of research, well suited to more complex administrative tasks, tuition and the supervision of both groups of other azi and of citizens. The BM-2367 gene set has been licensed for production by laboratories other than Reseune, and most members of the set one might now meet are produced away from Reseune Administrative Territory. The licensing of such stable gene sets to commercial laboratories allows Reseune the freedom to spend more time on research and development, and gives the citizens of Union the chance to buy up azi contracts in their own localities._

_The young citizens of the Forward Together Educational Institute are going to the Gennady Astakhov Civic Museum. Their in-person experience will be reinforced by a tape-enhanced study session once they return to their educational institute. They can see exhibits from the founding of Novgorod and enter their impressions of the physical items on the tablets provided by their educational institute. If they have questions on the exhibits, their instructors and the azi contracted to the Civic Museum will provide information suitable to their level of educational needs._

* * *

Gen Shaw looked down at the plasticised card in his hand again, carefully checking the address and numbers printed on it. The font was clear enough, not one of those overly fancy ones that some businesses thought made them look better. It was easier to read; he still checked it over again painfully slowly, just in case he'd got it wrong. Officially there wasn't any problem with adult literacy in Union; a one hundred per cent fluent literate and numerate population, citizens and azi alike, and if anyone _did_ have a problem, that was what remedial tape learning was for. Officially. But no one had ever checked to see he'd made up his mandated minimum attendance in education when he was a kid, and he guessed no one had for Jonny either. Though Jonny was bright, so bright that he always had his nose deep in something interesting and he could read any word you put in front of him, though maybe he said some of them with an Alliance accent, if he'd only ever heard them said out loud by some guy from Pell or something.

Building 17-D, New Forest Prospect. Huh. They'd probably cut down a few woolwood thickets when this place was being first built. It hadn't been fashionable for a while, you wanted a river view to be trendy now. He put his hand on the panel by the door.

"Office 5? Hello?"

"Hello? Who's that?"

A young male voice, citizen obviously. Gen looked around, suddenly nervous again. Suppose he'd been followed? Suppose someone knew what he had at home? It didn't bear thinking about.

"Can I come in? I made an appointment; I need to talk to someone."

There was no answer, for long enough that he was sure some sort of discussion was happening. He put his hand on the panel again.

"Office 5. Hello? Could you open the door?"

"You don't look like the sort of person who usually needs our help."

A different voice. Still male, still obviously a citizen with that attitude. Dammit. He huddled in closer to the panel.

"Looks can be deceiving. And I know someone who _does_. I'm looking for help for him; c'mon, open the door, I'm asking for someone you'll be interested in."

There was silence again and then the door slid open. He eeled inside before they could change their minds. The entrance lobby had seen better days: it wasn't dirty so much as faded and exhausted. It looked like a guy whose rejuv was thinking about thinking about failing. Someone did keep it swept and washed down, so Gen figured that maybe the building's company sent a cleaning team in every week or so. He wondered if any of them crept up the stairs to the people he was here to see.

"Up here!" 

The voice floated down from above, and he started up. What, they couldn't afford an elevator? Office Five was on the third floor, the door standing open, waiting for him. He rolled his shoulders, took a breath and poked his head round.

"Hello? You the lawyers?"

"No, we're the damn fan dancers," the fair haired guy sprawled behind a large desk snapped. 

"Hey," the other, younger guy said. "He's come all the way out to our district to see us. Let's hear him out."

Gen looked them over. The guy behind the desk needed a haircut and a sweater that didn't have coffee spilled on it. He looked young to be a lawyer, but then word in the advice bureau was this wasn't your usual sort of legal firm. The other guy – Gen stopped and looked closer. He was sure, absolutely sure that he'd seen that pleasant, open young face before, and more than once. The young man wasn't all that tall, but it was clear that under his (cleaner, better kept) clothing he was pretty muscular. He'd be perfect as private security. Or maybe as some sort of demonstration sportsman. Gen had seen guys with the same features in both those roles before. This guy was an azi, but –

"Is there something wrong?" the guy said.

"I don't mean to be rude," Gen said, "but are you – shit, I dunno how to ask this polite, like."

"How not polite are we talking? Am I mass-produced? Created under laboratory conditions? Perfect for a wide range of –"

"Just tell him you've received your damn citizenship status," the other guy said, like he was suffering from a sudden massive headache.

"Yeah, that."

The young man grinned at Gen and gestured at a chair.

"Have a seat. I'm Goran Sokolov and this is my employer, Kyrill Rin. I didn't take his name, just in case that was your next rude question, I just randomly scrolled through a list and jabbed my finger on the screen."

Gen winced. This was exactly the sort of reaction he hadn't wanted to get, like he was barging in all, _My God, you mean these people are_ people? _Really?_ He sat down and arranged his face into as meek and contrite an expression as he could.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm just not used to talking to – anyone, much. I didn't mean to say anything about your past."

"Don't apologise by implying that he has anything to be ashamed of the way in which he was born," Ser Rin snapped. "Goran, throw this idiot out of my office."

"No, wait! I'm here on behalf of an azi who needs legal help! I just was trying to say I thought Ser Sokolov here was a good sign." They both looked at him, and didn't say anything. That was good. He hoped. "I can't afford a lawyer for my friend, and I don't _know_ what he needs. I mean, I'm just some low-stratum guy who had a dodgy start in life and was lucky to have been registered –" Right, right, spill everything out, good, nice work, Shaw. " – and your card was in a pile of crap in a citizen's advice bureau, with a note about pro bono work for non-traditional clients. I asked, and they said you'd helped some azi who'd been mistreated by the people who held his contract?"

"Yeah, that case," Ser Rin said. "Want to know how it turned out? It blew up in the papers and next thing damn _Reseune_ lawyers took it off us. The defendants settled in two seconds flat, and Reseune psychs said the azi was so traumatized he had to be euthanized. And then their fancy lawyers went back to the magical kingdom of horror, having killed two birds with one stone. Don't mess around with azi contracts, that's Reseune's business. And azi, look at the damn ground when citizens walk by or we'll _get_ you. We really did that poor bastard a fucking favour. "

He sat back, a dissatisfied look on his face, but Gen realised the dissatisfaction was aimed at himself. He was furious with his own failure, with the loss of the unfortunate azi. Maybe he could offer some help. 

"Look, just listen to me. It's not your fault that those bastards stole your case. But you can help this guy."

"So what's your story?" Rin said. "Who's this _friend_ of yours?"

Gen drew breath. He hoped they believed at least some of it. 

"I was attacked the other night, and I'm pretty sure it's because I have an injured runaway Alpha in my apartment – at least I think that's what he is. I'm more sure that he's killed more than one citizen, because he saved my ass when I – we – were attacked."

They both sat up and stared at him like he'd announced that he had a plan for a line of three-headed azi and would they be keen on buying in?

"What? Where exactly were you attacked?" Goran said. And, "What's he been doing in your apartment?"

"Mostly deep-cleaning the kitchen and making the best coffee I've ever tasted."

There was utter silence in the office. Gen decided maybe he was pioneering a line of four-headed azi.

"Maybe," Rin said, "You'd better tell us everything from the beginning."

* * *

There was no need to drink to excess or take other intoxicants, and decently brought up citizens or new made-citizens who had rarely drunk anything stronger than water in their previous azi-status lives just didn't all that much. As far as Gen was concerned they didn't know what they were missing. Being pleasantly lubricated with vodka a step or two up from industrial fuel kept a guy warm when he was walking home at night. And being good at some very old fashioned card games gave a guy the money to attract pretty people to keep him warm when he got home.

There was no one this evening. Not when the prettiest of them in the café had been drinking at his expense all evening then laughed with her friends about the way he brought her drinks back. 

_Look at the way he balances the glasses. Like some dumb annie afraid of getting slapped._

There were things he didn't have to listen to, so he left and if she wanted to think he was insulted at being compared to an azi he could think it. He wasn't going to explain the real insult.

He trudged along once he exited the subway, hands shoved deep in pockets against the cold of the night air. There was some sort of security alert out, but he hadn't bothered trying to read it. A vehicle drew up in front of him, painted in the colours of the city police, and two azi officers got out.

"Ser, a moment."

"Yeah."

"Where have you come from, ser? And your destination?"

"I got the subway from two stops south. I live right over there, that apartment block. Have a good evening, officers."

"Ser. Your identification, please."

Yeah. It had been a slim chance they wouldn't ask. He could run, and these two fine physical specimens would catch him in a few seconds, or tranq him. Or he could try punching one, and the other would overpower him, or tranq him. And for what? It'd come up cleanish anyway. He handed it over and stood there shivering as they ran it. There was a fine series of beeps that he had long since come to recognise as describing his rotten childhood and stupid teenage years and one or two minor stupidities since. All of which had been atoned for and now he was a good, upstanding, practically unemployable citizen unless he agreed to major psych intervention. 

"You stack shelves in a supermarket? Ser?" one of them said. 

Whoever said that azi were always polite and couldn't understand sarcasm had never run into a pair of Novgorod cops in the freezing dark.

"I find it gives my mind the freedom to consider the human condition in all its glory so I can write my great novel. Tonight's my night off," he said.

"I hope your literary endeavours go well, ser," the other said, handing his card back. 

"Watch the bestseller lists for my name," Gen said, feeling the sting of laughter behind the perfectly calm, perfectly polite faces. "Is that all, officers?"

"Have a pleasant evening, ser."

They got back in the vehicle and drove off at a speed that indicated they weren't just looking for lone pedestrians to harass. It wasn't his problem. He peered around and decided to shave some time in the cold off his trip home. The derelict little maze of boarded up shops between the corner where he stood and the apartment blocks was slated for development, and if he cut straight through he'd be indoors and warm at least five minutes sooner. There was no sign of a security guard so he marched right over, pushed at the loose panel that all the locals knew about, and shoved his way between the old buildings.

It was really dark, and he stepped into a pool of something wet and sticky that made him retch before he saw the end of the tangled laneways in sight. Damn. It smelled like something had died in there. His shoes had better come clean. Then he tripped over something soft on the ground, and barely saved himself from falling headlong, grabbing on to the side of a building and half skinning his hands in the process. The soft thing made a horrible groaning sound and he tried to focus on it, seeing on a vague shape. It moved slightly and Gen gasped. It was a person.

"What the hell?" 

He crouched down to touch the pale face, finding the skin icy under his fingers. Looking closer in the light from the end of the lane he could see a dark stain on the front of the figure's clothes – the guy's clothes, given the size. He wasn't wearing a coat, he'd damn well freeze.

"Shit. Hey, hey, open your eyes. Come on, you gotta open your eyes. Don't go to sleep. What happened? Shit, why am I asking? Ambulance. OK, man, I'm going and getting help for you, don't worry."

A cold hand wavered up and landed more or less on his arm. The gaze directed up at him was unnervingly steady and unblinking.

"No," the guy whispered. "No ambulance. Just let me die. I deserve –"

His eyes closed again.

Gen slowly stood and looked down at him. Then he hauled him upright. No one damn well deserved to die on a building site in the cold.

"You've gotta help me to help you," he said. "You've got to walk just a little bit, like maybe a couple hundred metres, no more, OK? No ambulance, though. I promise. No cops."

There wasn't much chance the guy understood anything past the tone of voice, so he kept up a stream of encouragement and they stumbled slowly and erratically out of the building site and into the series of apartment blocks until Gen could prop him in the corner of the elevator and they were whisked very slowly up to his floor and he got his new friend into his home and onto his bed.

He ran into the kitchen and grabbed everything he had stuffed under the sink because it wouldn't fit in the bathroom cabinet. All the painkillers and sterile pads and antiseptic wipes and half full bottles of antibiotics he no longer needed to stash because he was a good, upstanding citizen now and could go to a clinic if he needed to. Then he got his guest out of his clothes by cutting him out of the sweater and shirt – they'd been good quality once, but someone had been at them with a blade once already that night so he might as well finish the job. The wounds beneath went from shallow and more decorative than worrying to one long slash that if it had been just a centimetre deeper would have done for the guy long before Gen had ever found him. As it was Gen just soaked the gash, his guest and much of the mattress with saline solution, ignoring the inadvertent howl of pain, then he put antibiotic patches on it and bandaged him up tight. The guy made incoherent sounds mixed in with curses aimed at him, at God, at a string of names that washed over Gen, before trailing off into sobs that subsided into silence.

After that the adrenaline wore off and Gen sat down hard on the floor, staring at what he really hoped wasn't a cooling body lying in his bed. After a few seconds he could focus on the rise and fall of the guy's chest, so he shakily got up again, and slowly washed the filth from his patient's face and hands, then covered him over with a sheet, and turned the heat up high. He'd figure out how to pay for it some other day. He pulled his uncomfortable armchair in from the main room, collapsed into it and was asleep almost instantly.

In the morning his guest was still alive, so he put on clothes that weren't smeared with mud and internal organs, and went to the second nearest pharmacy. A bit of rummaging around got him a basket full of bandages, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic powders and wound sealing spray. Nothing he'd need a prescription for, he couldn't risk taking Hugo to a clinic. After a bit of dithering that he covered under the guise of looking at some goddam nail polishes he got in the line to pay the CIT member of staff. She looked bored and like she'd had a long night. She'd be completely uninterested in any of her customers. The azi at the other end of the counter looked far too alert and like he was committing every single person who came up to him to memory.

He handed over his card as the woman scanned his purchases without comment and left, keeping it at a calm stroll. Then he hurried home and changed the bandages, closing the edges of the awful wound closed with the spray. It was ridiculous. He needed to call proper help. He needed to think of some sort of story to explain all of this.

The young man moaned and opened his eyes. They were a bright green, looking huge in the unnaturally pale face. He licked his lips and looked around as best he could without actually raising his head. If he hadn't almost bled out and was looking a bit less ill he'd have been really pretty.

"Where –"

"My apartment," Gen said. "You didn't want an ambulance."

"No," his patient said. "No. I don't want –" his voice dried up and he looked confused.

"What happened, man? Why were you out there with your guts hanging out?"

The young man looked at him silently, and then something went out in his eyes. He looked like he'd withdrawn inside himself and was retreating far and fast, like he had shut down and wasn't planning on ever coming back. His eyelids slowly closed and he went entirely limp. Gen watched him in incomprehension at first and then –

" _Shit_."

He'd got it wrong. He didn't have some unfortunate normal guy who'd run in with the wrong people lying there in his bed. That was an azi sinking deep into fugue, willing himself to die.

"Don't you fucking dare. I _order_ you to open your eyes."

Nothing. Gen got a glass of water and tried to trickle it into the unresponsive mouth. There was no swallow reflex. _Shit._ He couldn't let the guy just lie there until he died of starvation and dehydration. He went to his closet and dug in the battered box on the floor, his skin crawling as he took out the familiar set of small console and skin contact-pads. He should have dumped this years ago, but it was one of the very few things left from his childhood; it was also one of the things that made his childhood so crappy, but that was just life laughing at him. What else did he have that his mother had ever touched? 

He went back to sit on the edge of the bed. You were supposed to wet the pads a bit, and pharmacies sold special gels suitable for sensitive skins, rated for children, perfumed or fragrance-free as the buyer desired. Gen had never seen any difference between them and regular old lube, so he got the tube out of his bedside stand and smeared some on all the pads. Then he carefully applied them to the silent still body: temples, carotid, over the heart – dammit, groin too, the guy was an adult. Then he shoved the earpieces in, plugged the whole unit in and looked at the cartridge. What the hell sort of azi _swore?_ Or had a face that was delicately modelled and not simply the rather blandly pleasant appearance of most of them? He had to be beta class; who knew if this would even work on him? Gen went back to the closet and got the hypospray; an azi shouldn't need this, but what the hell, it couldn't hurt. He checked the level and administered a full adult dose of kat. It was out of date, probably wouldn't do anything anyway. Then he shoved the cartridge home and started the whole thing running on a continuous loop.

He shoved the remnants of the tattered, muddy and bloodied clothing into a rubbish bag. There was nothing in any of the pockets: no money, no identification. He'd have to think how he'd dispose of them. He could try to lose them deep in a public trash can, or incineration might be the best, if he could find somewhere that only did a basic scan on contents. Perhaps he could risk stuffing it in with the supermarket's trash. He occupied himself in scrubbing every last trace of blood from the apartment, then took a nap in the very uncomfortable chair before calling in to work to say he had a gastric upset and couldn't come in. His supervisor was very sympathetic but still reminded him that one more missed shift and he was out. Yeah, fantastic.

Dinner was a can of soup and a truly terrible entertainment show. How could these people be celebrities if he'd never heard of them? Surely they had to be known to the citizen on the street? Well, he was the damn citizen on the street and he was turning over to the news.

It was never good news. There'd been another attack on the subway, late last night, the cops were still investigating. It couldn't have been why he'd been stopped, or have anything to do with his guest; it had happened after midnight and they'd been home by then. There'd been earlier trouble as well: abolitionist activists had demonstrated outside some genetics lab only a couple of kilometres away on the direct subway line and things had got out of hand. The lab was yelling about terrorism, the abolitionists were claiming they'd been exercising their civic rights, the police had a few dozen people in custody and – Gen whistled at the images – there'd been a fire. Hundreds of thousands of credits worth of damage to assets – or people, as an abolitionist spokesman said – and poor confused individuals still needing to be found and brought back to safety. Which meant that the lab didn't want to admit how many of its azi might have been spirited away. 

He looked over at the guy still lying silently in his bed. If he'd been stolen from the lab, why cut him up like that? Perhaps he'd asked too many times to go back. Or they'd just been perverts. He checked on him, topped up his dosage of kat and made sure the console wasn't overheating; sometimes you had to turn it off for half an hour or so. Stupid old-fashioned cheap-ass thing. If he didn't focus his thoughts too much and let the stupid console drift into his mind, sometimes he could picture it being held in a pair of hands chapped and reddened with work. The trick was not to think about it too hard, and then sometimes he could even see how no matter how mistreated those hands looked, the fingernails were always a lovely almond shape. 

He trickled a little water between the young man's lips, and this time he swallowed, although he didn't seem to be awake. Gen slowly gave him a full glass of water, and wished he'd bought a catheter, or diapers or something. He resigned himself to cleaning things up as needed.

In the morning, he woke he find himself being watched. His guest had turned his head and was looking at him unblinkingly. Gen leapt up and went over.

"You're awake! How do you feel?"

"Terrible. Are you running tape on me?"

"Let me turn that off. There. I'll disconnect you –"

"I feel dizzy, it's like there's a barrier between the world and me."

"Yeah," Gen said. "It does that. It'll feel better after a while, though. Could I ask your designation?" He kept his tone calm and neutral, as polite as a kid who'd just had a civics class on how to not talk down to non-citizen residents of the city.

"Do you mean my name?" the young man said slowly, still looking a bit like he was searching for words through water.

"I guess."

"Hugo Cho," he said, like it was totally normal to give a surname.

Gen paused.

"CIT-4-65-98-55-0134," Hugo said, still looking totally out of it. There was no way anyone looking like that could just lie and come up with a CIT number. But anyone who really _had_ a number could rattle it off under practically any circumstance. It was one of the first things drilled into any kid.

Gen stared at him in horror. He'd just run Eta azi tape on an injured citizen for almost twenty four hours straight. He was as bad as his stepmother.

* * *

**The Economic POISON of Union's SLAVE CLASS**

_The recent budget shows that the sell-outs of the politicos who STILL cling on to the teat of the Centrist coalition are nothing more than mouthpieces for the VAMPIRES and SLAVEMASTERS crawling from the labs of Reseune and their Novgorod outposts. Make no mistake, ALL gene labs are owned and run directly by Ariane Emory and even if you aren't opposed to the buying and selling of human beings, just consider - if you spend your money in a Novgorod lab YOU are spending YOUR money to fatten Emory's pockets and to make Reseune richer._

_Change the inequitable structures of society! We must work to tear down the barriers that divide citizen from citizen and citizen from azi. Our politicians work for those in power, not for the people: the people must take power back to themselves._

_Keep Novgorod's wealth IN Novgorod! Let the ATs fend for themselves! Shut down the labs! Stop azi production immediately! Reserve all jobs for the _CITIZENS_ of Novgorod! _

* * *

Hugo had come home from the supermarket to find the apartment had been upended. He had stood there motionless for almost a full minute in the middle of the living room, the bag of groceries dangling from his hand as he took in the destruction. For a few moments he had found he could only concentrate on single objects that were out of place; the disorder of them being away from their normal positions was profoundly disturbing. He didn't call out; for some reason he had known there was no point, that Katarina was gone. Then he shook himself out of the disassociation of shock and quickly checked the bedroom, bathroom and went out to hammer on the door of the next apartment.

"Did you see anything?" he yelled. "Who took her?"

"It's not my business," his neighbour yelled back. She'd always been pleasant to them both. 

"Sera Zielinska, please! Who took my wife?"

The door opened a scant few centimetres, a thick security chain stopping him from pushing it wide. 

"They had vans with a DNA logo," she said unwillingly. "It was a couple of CITs with a gang of security azi. They said she was a runaway azi from their lab. She never seemed like that."

"She's _not_ ," Hugo said in thin lipped fury. Half the labs in the city would have a DNA symbol as part of their logo, if they really were from a lab at all. "For God's sake, Sera Zielinska."

She looked down, then up. "They said you were too, Hugo. They left cards so people could report if you came back. They're gone maybe ten minutes. They could be back very quickly." She handed out a plasticized card, and shut the door firmly. 

Hugo looked around, and saw people duck out of sight in more than one window. He marched back into his own apartment, right into the tiny kitchen where Katarina had been chopping meat for their dinner, picked up the large knife she'd been using and hid it in his jacket.

Then he left.

* * *

"How was he effected by what you did?" Ser Rin asked, like maybe he was considering suing Gen for mistreatment of Hugo.

"He was pretty out of it for the rest of the day and then kind of came round. He didn't do that despairing-azi thing again, anyway."

He looked cautiously at Goran, like maybe he shouldn't talk like that around him. The guy didn't act like he'd been given his papers in the last year or so.

"How did you know about the effects of Eta class tape on a supposed Alpha?" Rin said. He slid on a pair of reading glasses and started making notes on a battered pad of paper. "Have you done that before?"

Crap.

"No. I –" Damn, just say it. "It - look, I'm not saying I'm Alpha-smart. That's not what I'm trying to say. I've – seen it used on a CIT. It was my stepmom's favourite way of keeping me quiet."

Rin blinked, looked like he was going to say something, then just didn't. Goran sure did.

"What? How old were you? Didn't she know that can be damaging for developing children?"

"Toddler and up. And yeah, yeah she knew."

"What did she think she was doing?" Goran said, his pleasant face set in an expression of pity and alarm.

The answer to that was private, so Gen just shrugged.

"What lab?" Rin said. "Did he say what lab this wife of his was taken to?"

" _Beautiful Life_ ," Gen said. "Why do they all have names like that?" He looked at the way that Rin and Goran were exchanging glances. "What?"

"That's the lab that was hit by activists the night you took in your guest," Rin said. "They're still tracking down missing azi."

"Kyr, we've gotta take this case."

"No, we don't. Don't go getting emotional."

"Seriously, Kyr. This is it. Maybe we could get them."

"You know I don't like swearing in front of potential clients so I'll swear at you later. Goran, _no_. You're not setting foot over there."

"We'll take your case, Ser Shaw," Goran said.

"You will? Thanks! Why?"

" _Beautiful Life_ ," Goran said. "They're bastards. They don't have a license for experimentation, no lab in the city does. But they do it, and they write up their _thought experiments_ and put down the evidence. If there's a lab around that has produced an experimental Alpha, it's them."

"He has a CIT number," Rin interjected.

Goran took a breath. Before he could say anything Rin stood up.

"Shut up, Goran. Fine. We'll take the case. We'll see if this person is an azi or a CIT; either way he could probably use a lawyer," Rin said. "I want to meet this Hugo of yours."

"If he is an Alpha, why would they hurt him so bad?"

"He fought back. Or he killed some of them? He's just a prototype." Rin sighed. "They'll want to bring out a commercially viable line. Alphas – or something like them – for anyone who can afford them. They can't afford Reseune discovering anything before they're ready to release their line."

"You make it sound like they want to launch a new line of luxury vehicles. Or luxury clothing," Gen said.

"Welcome to commercial cloning," Rin said. "There's a lot of money to be made."

* * *

"I'm all right," Hugo said, and fell flat on his pretty face.

Gen caught him and got him sitting on the bed again. He was slender in build, but solid enough.

"Hey, take it easy. You'll open the cut up again. You want to tell me how you got that, now?"

"In pursuit of justice," Hugo said. "I feel –" He shook his head and glared at the floor. "What was that tape?"

"You were slipping away," Gen said. "You know, like when azi get suicidal? I just hoped it might help; and you woke up, so –"

"I'm a citizen," Hugo said in slow, careful emphasis, like he thought maybe Gen was an idiot. His gaze focused sharply on Gen. "Why would you know what a suicidal azi looks like?"

"Doesn't matter. Let me change the bandage, if you're not going to tell me."

He peeled off the bandage, shook more antibiotic powder onto the wound and put on a fresh dressing. The edges of the wound were holding, by some miracle. Hugo breathed shallowly and carefully through the whole thing and gulped down painkillers when Gen held them out with a glass of water afterwards.

"Could you help me to the bathroom?"

"As long as you promise not to cut your wrists."

Hugo looked at him for just a beat too long.

"Of course."

Gen hung around outside the half-open door, just in case. Nothing happened other than Hugo using the toilet and then washing as thoroughly as he could. When he came out Gen changed the sheets on the bed and found him an old soft t-shirt and a pair of underwear to put on, and got him mostly lying down again before giving him the gourmet experience of opening yet another tin of soup and scattering some shreds of what the supermarket had said was almost certainly cheese on top. Hugo got to the bottom of his mug of soup through sheer willpower and then fell asleep like he had just been turned off.

Gen put the mugs in the sink and reluctantly went to work. He worried all the way through his shift and almost sprinted home at the end of it, a bag of reduced price out-of-date groceries in his hand. Hugo was still asleep.

Gen started cooking something that might count as a proper dinner, or a very heavy breakfast, or just something that could actually fill them up. The smell of tinned meat and onions began to fill the apartment

"What are you doing?"

"Making some food," he called. "I hope you like onions, because I chopped too many." He added tomatoes and spices and let the whole thing simmer away. Finally he made some pasta and brought a bowl of the result in to Hugo.

"I don't usually eat like this in the morning," Hugo said, looking at it dubiously.

"I work nights. This is my dinner time."

He took the bowl from Gen and ate the food slowly. It wasn't to his taste, that much was obvious, but it went down and showed every sign of staying down. That was what counted. Gen washed the bowl afterwards and gave him a cup of coffee with real sugar that he had stolen from the supermarket. Hugo needed all the calories he could get while he was recovering. After a bathroom break it was naptime again, and Gen took a blanket to settle down in the chair.

"Have you been sleeping there?" Hugo said, frowning.

"Yeah."

"But there's a settee."

"I wanted to be here, in case you needed something," Gen said. 

Hugo looked at him, and then put a hand over his face. Gen was horrified to hear the muffled sobs.

"Hey! Hey, chill, OK? Just be calm, relax. It's fine, it's fine, everything's OK."

"Thank you." Hugo sounded broken up. "Very few people have wanted to help me." He took a deep and ragged breath as he lowered his hand and looked at Gen. "Please get some proper rest. I'll be all right."

He pulled the covers over himself and pretended to go to sleep, obviously intent on proving how all right he was, so Gen went out to the apartment's main room. The settee was ancient and not long enough to stetch out on, but it would be better than the chair. He curled up under his blanket, dropped his head onto an old and flat cushion and let sleep wash over him.

They somehow fell into a kind of rhythm after that. Hugo stubbornly crawled out of bed every morning and sat in the chair for an hour while Gen tidied the sheets up and even washed them now and then. It wasn't that Hugo _said_ anything, but Gen was suddenly very aware of his deficiencies in the housekeeping department. Then there was the day that Hugo stubbornly staggered around the apartment with Gen beside him ready to grab him when he fell. The next day he did it twice. The day after, five times. When he had enough energy to sigh, very slightly, before politely eating what was put in front of him, Gen showered and shaved and put on his neatest clothes. Then he went to an upmarket store he'd never been in before, put an overpriced loaf of bread in his basket and shoplifted like he hadn't since he was seventeen years old. He was out of practice; he was saved by the store not wanting to disrupt their upmarket clientele's shopping experience with too much security and the fact that some rich lady's kid had an absolute meltdown two aisles over. The crash of a display hitting the floor made the well-dressed and all-too-suspicious azi who'd been following Gen for a few minutes hurry over to check and he dumped his basket and fled.

They had a dinner of expensive thinly cut meats and cheese, with what purported to be real butter spread on cheap bread – Gen wasn't sure he liked its rich taste – and really stupidly expensive preserves on the bread for dessert. Gen hoped Hugo appreciated those, they were what nearly got him caught.

"How did you afford this?" Hugo said. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I thought you, ah, didn't have the best paying employment?"

"Oh, I got inventive," Gen said airily. Then, because maybe a guy who didn't want real medical help when he was cut to ribbons had no moral high ground to stand on, he added, "I just redistributed some dietary wealth."

He wondered if Hugo would be shocked, or refuse another helping of the strawberry preserves. Instead, he covered his mouth with one slender hand and laughed quietly. He had a nice laugh.

"Please be careful, Gen. I'd hate to see you arrested."

"This dinner's worth it."

The company's worth it, he didn't say. It had been a long time since he'd had anyone in his apartment for longer than one evening. A long time since he'd cooked or done anything but make instant coffee for another human being.

"Why are you helping me?"

It was a question Gen hadn't wanted him to ask, mainly because he wasn't sure how to answer. He shrugged.

"I guess you looked like you needed help."

Hugo looked at him in that unnervingly straight-on way that people usually don't. His whole attention, focused right on Gen, like there was nothing else to see. Cops looked at you like that. Store security guards. And what did they have in common? _Security training_ , his mind said sarcastically. _Azi_ , he thought. But Hugo had a CIT number. If it was real. 

"You don't know what I did."

"Whatever it was, you still needed help."

"Thank you." Hugo looked around and with a smile, changed the subject. "This apartment seems rather large for one person."

"My family had a long term lease. I got residency back when I – I was given residency as an adult. It was for five occupants originally. My mom and dad, they had the bedroom where you are, and my bother and me, we shared the smaller room. It's full of old furniture now."

"That's four people."

"We were doing OK," Gen said. "We had a maid. Mollie EM-6252, I don't remember her all that well." _Hands, reddened with work, holding the tape-console. A snatch of a song in another room. Someone stroking his head -_ He smiled at Hugo as if it all meant nothing at all. "When my dad took off we only had half the income, things got tougher, but we still had this place, thank God."

"I'm an educator," Hugo said. "I specialise in early education; I'm good with children."

"You want to tell me what happened to you, Instructor Hugo?"

Hugo looked at him again with that level, total-focus gaze. Then he sat back and looked more like a normal guy.

"My wife was kidnapped."

"Your wife?"

Gen felt a bit of a pang, and felt stupid for it. What, he'd expected eternal love and gratitude for first aid?

"We hadn't registered it yet, if that's what you're asking. Does it matter? She wanted to throw a party to celebrate that, and we were saving up. They took her out of our house, and I went to get her back."

"Who did?" Gen said.

"A genetics lab. It's complicated. I – knew some people and they staged a diversion."

Gen gaped at him.

"That fire in the lab a few stops away? That was you? What the hell, man? You could have killed people!"

"Could I?" Hugo said. "What a shame that would have been. How are we defining _people_ in this instance?"

"Are you the crazy sort of abolitionist who thinks azi should be just got rid of magically?" Gen said. "I mean, these people you _knew,_ they were abolitionists, right?"

"No one should be _got rid of_ ," Hugo said. "I was desperate."

"The lab's still saying that some of their azi aren't accounted for – what are your friends doing with them? And some security guards, CITs and azi, were killed. Did you at least find your wife?"

"No," Hugo said. He looked away, a totally human gesture of shame. "It all went wrong." He sighed and seemed to find it difficult to meet Gen's eyes again. "She didn't survive."

If there was anything Gen had learned in all his crappy life, it was when someone wasn't telling all there was to be told. Whatever. The truth was clearly bad, and Hugo didn't want to say it out loud where he'd have to hear it and admit to himself that it _was_ true. That was the sort of thing that made it obvious that he _was_ a CIT, able to lie to himself, at least in part. But then he went back to that laser-focus gaze and the way he seemed to just absorb things that were said to him, setting off everything in Gen that told him he was facing an azi, no matter what the CIT number said. Nah. He had to be imagining it; it was all down to the weirdnesses of his childhood and the taunts of other kids the moment they discovered those weirdnesses. He was seeing patterns where there weren't any; it was all in his mind. 

"I'm very grateful for your help," Hugo said. And, "I just wanted to get her back. It was all I could think about."

"Did you kill anyone?" Gen said. He wished it was the first time he'd ever asked anyone that question.

"I don’t actually remember. I'm telling the truth about that. It's certainly possible."

"Do you remember who did that to you?"

"A security guard. I found the scientist who - who –" Hugo went pale and looked like he'd throw up. He went still and silent. "I was desperate," he said after a long time.

Cops and security guards were trained to subdue. It took a lot to make them kill criminals, unless they were powerful people's bodyguards who'd been tape-trained to overcome hesitation. But someone, almost certainly an azi, had picked up something sharp and tried to slice Hugo into ribbons. They'd been desperate too.

He ate another piece of bread and shoved the preserves back to Hugo. He wasn't going to judge. He'd been desperate plenty of times in his life.

* * *

"I think they know he's somewhere in my area," Gen said, as Goran gave him a mug of coffee that was better than the stuff he usually drank and nowhere near as good as the coffee that Hugo somehow made out of the same elderly stock. "I've seen people I don't know hanging around, and it's not really the sort of place that you visit for the ambiance."

"What sort of people?" Rin said.

"Security, investigators – you know the kind, they're built like walking settees. They're private, not the city police, all trying to look casual but they've all been supplied with clothes from the same store so they may as well be wearing a uniform."

"CITs or azi?" Goran said.

"Both. One guy made a show of pretending to be lost and asked me for directions back to the subway before wondering if I knew his friend who'd moved in to a place somewhere near here. He'd lost the number, you see. He gave a good description of Hugo. I saw him talking to a woman from down the block later."

He stared glumly into his coffee as they whispered. Damn, he hoped he was doing the right thing. If they really could help perhaps they could get Hugo out of the city to an outpost or something for a while. The thought that maybe they'd use this to get back in the lab's good books niggled at him, as did the idea of the case being snatched from under their noses.

"What happens if lawyers come in from Reseune again?"

They looked at each other.

"You don't want that," Goran said. "Not until we get your friend's CIT status checked out."

"But if they do?"

"Reseune is the legal guardian of azi rights," Rin said, sounding like he could spit. "They have an absolute right to interest themselves in any case involving azi that they want to. If it's a case involving an Alpha, they certainly will. And if they discover he's an experimental – which he has to be, if his sets were developed away from their labs – then he is one hundred per cent their interest, their ward and their eternal prize and can never be granted citizenship."

"So what are you going to do?"

"For a start, I'm going to check out his past. He's a children's educational instructor. He'll have needed training, to have been psychologically vetted. He'll have gone to an educational institute himself. He's been registered as an inhabitant of a district. He'll have had his birth registered. Let's see if those documents actually exist."

"But you still want to meet him."

"Very much so," Rin said.

* * *

The apartment had never been so clean, not since Gen could remember. Hugo just laughed when he was told he didn’t have to do anything, and cleaned and tidied another spot. Everything looked better, more inviting, more like a home. When Hugo felt strong enough he took his turn at cooking and produced meals that were far beyond Gen's method of chucking everything in the same pan and heating them up with too much salt and pepper. It was just as well, because he had lifted groceries in practically every store in easy access and felt he had to take it easy for a while to allow people to begin dropping their guards again. For the moment they were back to the dented tins and just-out-of-date food that the supermarket sold at a discount at the end of opening hours.

It was a shock to discover that he no longer felt lonely – that he had felt lonely in the first place. He'd thought he'd been doing OK. He wished that Jonny had been allowed to come back and live with him. He forgave Jonny everything, and maybe he'd been forgiven in turn. It was no wonder he'd got into trouble, being put in an empty apartment so young and given a dead-end job and a basic education certificate that he could barely read. The case worker had been so _understanding_ yet so sadly _disappointed_ that he hadn't risen above his tragic circumstances. _It's been agreed that this instance of anti-social behaviour can be dealt with by probation and a minor intervention, Gen. There can't be a next time, do you understand? You need to be a responsible citizen from now on._. He had nodded and wiped his eyes and blamed it all on unwisely taking drugs – of _course_ he would agree to the anti-drug intervention. When he came home, full of a conviction to never again take the narcotics he had taken precisely once in his life, he had sold the stolen goods still hidden safely under the floorboards and lived comfortably for half a year.

"Gen? Haven't you ever thought of getting a smaller apartment? You could find someone to rent this one to."

"I have to stay here. My brother wouldn't know where else to find me."

Hugo rubbed a cloth around a glass until it shone like it was straight out of a store. Then he polished it some more.

"Where is your brother?"

Gone. In more ways than one.

"Who knows? But if he does come back, this is where he'd come."

"Your parents divorced when you were young?"

"Yeah. I mean, I guess Mom filed the paperwork. One day Dad just wasn't there. They fought a lot. I don't really remember, I was pretty small."

"So it was just the three of you then."

"Yeah."

"And your azi maid, of course."

"Yeah."

"You flinch every time she's mentioned. You do realise that, don't you?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Gen. Why do you know what a suicidal azi looks like?"

"Fuck. Yourself."

"Gen," Hugo said, and he sounded worried, really worried. "What happened?"

"I was small," Gen said. "I don't remember."

"You could see someone, they'd help you –"

Hands on the tape-console. A touch on his head. Sometimes, in dreams, he thought he saw her face.

"I don't _want_ to remember!"

Hugo looked at him helplessly, the look that azi gave CITs who were acting weird. He had a CIT number. Gen was imagining things. He had always just imagined that he could tell azis from CITs.

"Mom always said she stole her husband from her," he said. "Mollie," he said as Hugo looked even more confused. "Mom said she was a home-wrecking little slut. She never said anything about what Dad was like. I mean, don't you think he just said, _Mollie, take your clothes off and get on the bed_ and she said, _Yes, ser_ , because she'd never been taught how to say _No_?"

"The law says it's not illegal under many circumstances," Hugo said carefully.

"I thought about it a lot," Gen said. "I don't really care what the law says in many circumstances. Mom said a lot of things, like Mollie was stupid, but I don't think she was. She just never got training in looking after a new baby. She never meant to harm me, she was just trying to please Mom and keep me quiet. She thought I was a good baby and good azi, even azi kids get reward tape, right?"

Hugo downright gaped at him.

"She – you – as a _baby?_ Like you were an _azi?_ "

"She wasn't trying to cause harm," Gen insisted. "And she didn't have any of the tapes that would be run on azi kids. And so what if she was trying to make me more like her? Parents want that, I'm told." He glared in defiance at Hugo. "She was my mother. I don't know why Dad had her implant taken out, but here I am."

Hugo sat back. 

"I see," he said. "I'm so sorry you lost her, Gen. Your legal mother seems to have been unkind to her."

"She wasn't really kind to anyone," Gen muttered. "She was still the only mom I remember. She kept me quiet the same way that Mollie did, for years, until Jonny realised it wasn't right. Then he persuaded her to focus on him instead."

"And Mollie? What was she doing?"

"She wasn't here. I don't _remember_ what happened."

"Oh, Gen."

"I _don't_ remember." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Jonny said I should never tell anyone in authority about the tape. And eventually Mom – Mom died. I was in care and then I was here. Jonny had a psych intervention. Some day he'll come back here."

Hugo had his hand on his arm. It felt warm and strong. 

"Why did they intervene?"

Oh, just say it all.

"Because he killed her." It was weird how Hugo seemed to be quite far away. "Things were really kinda out of hand and then he stopped it, and they said we both needed psych help, but me maybe not so much, because we didn't say so much about me and he said everything was to do with him, and he was a good bit older. He was still a minor so I hope that he got off lighter than he might have, but they told me that it was best that he had a new start in life and he had a new place now and a new name and that was that."

"You should have been given proper help," Hugo said. "Long before. You, and your brother, and Mollie. And your mother."

"And you," Gen said. "You and Katarina. Why do you think they took her?"

"I have no idea," Hugo said, as he always did. He rubbed Gen's arm. "I know I made them regret it." He smiled a little ruefully as he squeezed Gen's forearm.

He was so pretty. And mourning his wife. And consoling Gen over the loss of his family. Gen looked down and didn't kiss him. Instead he got up and started making coffee. He was spooning the gound coffee into the jug when Hugo reached over him to take the container out of his hand.

"You want to make it? You're better at it –"

Hugo turned him around and kissed him unhesitatingly on the mouth. It wasn't Gen's finest moment - he thought afterwards he could have joked about being irresistible, or just kissed back or acted like he'd at least heard of such a thing before. Instead he stood there, wide-eyed and felt the blood suffuse his cheeks.

"What –"

Hugo kissed him again, and this time he took the opportunity to slide his tongue between Gen's open lips. He was wounded, and needed somewhere to hide, and probably thought he had to pay for his lodging somehow and – Hugo leaned back and peered at him.

"I've overstepped. I apologise."

— and he was going to back off and never go any further.

"You just surprised me," Gen said. "I mean, you've had terrible things happen to you, and me? I'm just a stranger who patched you up."

"No," Hugo said. "You've proved yourself far more than that. Gen, wouldn't you like some comfort? I would."

"Yes," Gen said, and pulled him close, holding him as tight as he thought he could without hurting. He kissed him until he felt light-headed with pleasure, not caring that he was shoved up against the counter, the rough edge he was always meaning to fix digging into his back. Hugo's hair was soft and thick under his fingers and his mouth was warm and lovely. 

Hugo cupped a hand between Gen's legs, rubbing firmly. He laughed softly at the sound of pleasure he got in response. "Do you want to go into the bedroom?"

"Yeah, yeah, I do."

They sorted themselves out on the bed once they'd taken their clothes off, Gen carefully arranging himself so that he didn't lie up against the awful cut. He'd seen what was under Hugo's clothes when he cut them off that first night, but it was a better sight now, when he was clean, and not three-quarters dead. He hoped that Hugo liked the sight of him; he'd never had any complaints before. He took Hugo's hot, very much alive, dick in his hand and stroked him with firm, sure movements as Hugo groaned and tried to wrap a leg around him, only to wince and put it back down.

"Take it easy," Gen said between kisses. "Just let me take care of you."

"You take such good care of me," Hugo said, gasping as Gen circled his thumb over the tip of his dick. He bit his lip as Gen increased the speed of his hand, and panted as he climaxed, hot wetness spilling through Gen's fingers.

"Come here," Hugo said, shifting on the bed a little awkwardly. "I wish I could move more easily." He slid one arm around Gen to hold him close for kisses and cupped his balls in his other hand, stroking them gently before moving his attentions to his dick. For someone married to a girl he certainly wasn't unfamiliar with the theory, or, Gen thought giddily as he shoved his dick back and forth in Hugo's hand, the practice. He barely had to move before Hugo had already shifted to accommodate him as much as was possible; it was really nice to be with someone so focused on him. When he came he made sure to sag down on the mattress, rather than on top of Hugo, which was what he really wanted.

He was warm, he felt comforted. All the awful things he'd told Hugo about his life were banished outside the circle of the arms holding him. He peered into the pale face and green eyes centimetres from his own, and hoped that Hugo was feeling some measure of the same calm.

"Let me get some paper towels so we can clean up, and you can get some rest," he said.

Hugo kissed him softly.

"Get the towels, and we'll clean up. And we can both rest, and then do it again. If you like?"

Gen grinned.

"Works for me."

* * *

"So we'll be all right?" Gen said. "You'll make sure his papers are OK, and he won't get in trouble for anything to do with that lab?"

"We'll do our best," Goran said. "There aren't any guarantees in life or the law, though, right, Kyr?"

"Hmm," Rin said. "Do you need to add anything else before we wrap up for today, Ser Shaw?"

"I mean, I don't want to get in trouble for hiding him obviously –"

"Obviously."

"But I also found it difficult to support both of us on my wages. So I shoplifted food now and then. I have a record for that as a kid. Shoplifting, I mean, not just for food." 

"For fuck's sake," Rin muttered, making notes. "You make a list of everywhere you stole from. We'll assume that _Beautiful Life_ will find out and use it to discredit your evidence. We'll get ahead of it and aim to have a restorative case. You'll have to pay back the cost of the food and more than likely a fine. There'll be a psychological intervention, given the earlier record."

"Can you keep it to a fine?"

Rin looked at him sharply. "How are you planning on paying? Did you steal from your place of employment?"

"Absolutely not," Gen lied. "I need the job."

"Hmm. One last thing. Are all your actions with this person, going by the name of Hugo Cho, above reproach?"

"I took him off the street and fixed him up, so yeah?"

Rin leant forwards. "You suspect that he's a runaway azi – we know that some of _Beautiful Life_ 's azi are still missing. You suspect that he's a runaway _Alpha_ azi. If he is, you'd need a licence to have interactions with him. So – have you taken advantage of this person? Have you screwed him?"

"No way," Gen said. "No way, no how."

Rin took off his reading glasses and looked at him.

"Thank you for clarifying that," he said in a voice as dry as the deep outback.

Gen smiled his most innocent smile.

* * *

The bed was big enough for two, and it was a lot warmer sleeping together, so Gen never did move back to the settee. They worked out what was comfortable for Hugo to do, and he did it eagerly, willingly. Gen sure hoped it was giving him the comfort he wanted, because for himself, he had never had so much _comfort_ assured day in, day out from another human being and he was slightly alarmed by how much he liked it. He reminded himself that Hugo would get better, would leave, and then he'd be by himself again. It was hard to keep that in mind when his dick was in Hugo's mouth, or they were holding each other, easing down towards sleep.

"Don't you think that people might be looking for you?" he said, as Hugo laid his head on his shoulder and sighed in contentment. "Your employers – won't they have reported you missing?"

"We didn't have many friends. We'd only just moved to that area. If the office administrators were worried – I suppose that eventually the police might have checked. I don't know why they haven't looked properly. You have no idea what the apartment was like, Gen."

He awkwardly turned to face away, his back to Gen.

"I'm sorry. I just thought maybe someone else might want to help."

"No."

"How did you know those people? The ones who set the fire?"

"Advanced education," Hugo said, sounding muffled. "Some of them were in a student political society that talked about absolute equality. I thought that sounded rather nice. Some of them became more radical. I found it easy to track them down; God knows how the police haven't."

"You went to an advanced institute," Gen said, glad of even a nugget of information.

Hugo peered back. "How else would I get a certificate licensing me to teach CIT children? I'm exceptionally well qualified, it's not like I did a half-hour deep-teach class, you know. I took certificates in some advanced language and literature classes as well, just to give myself a few extra strings to my bow." He sounded a little irritated. "They weren't even all that advanced, I don't know why other students found my activities peculiar."

"Why? Didn't they like the idea of mixing teaching and reading?"

Hugo rolled back, wincing. He seemed happier now that he could talk about his own education.

"They said I had to be cheating, somehow, using the tape elements of the course in an unauthorised way. Just because I took a few extra modules!"

"How many did you take?"

"All of them." Hugo's expression was very clear and innocent. "Honestly, I felt I needed at least a _little_ challenge."

Gen stared at him. His own deficiencies in education seemed very large to him.

"I, uh, sort of zoned out of education as a kid and never zoned back in," he said. "In the group home they mostly cared that we had our lights out by ten and weren't rated totally illiterate. We could all read the stuff they used for testing us, so that was OK; no one ever bothered checking from above. Maybe there wasn't anyone above the supervisors in the home, I dunno." 

"I'll read with you if you like. I was in a better home – I remember a man, when I was small, but then I was in a creche with other children for a while, and then a couple of foster homes." Hugo stroked a hand down Gen's face. "They weren't unpleasant to me, any of them, but they weren't exceptionally pleasant either. They all just cared about me doing well in education; I think the man at first was different. I remember being told I was good. He must have been my father, don't you think? After that I was told I was an orphan."

"You were in a home?"

"Yes. It was quite miserable. I was very glad to finally get to the advanced educational institute. I met Katarina within the first week – it was as if we were drawn together. Neither of us looked at anyone else." He paused. "Gen, I'm sure you don't wish me to say such things to you. I can't really explain, but please don't think that my feelings for her lessen those for you, or vice versa."

"It's cool," Gen said, and put his arms around him. 

"They covered it up by saying she was a runaway from their labs," Hugo said in a rush. "They told our neighbours we both were. People were prepared to believe it, if they got a reward, Gen. But I had foster parents. Katarina had a mother – the woman died of rejuv failure two years ago. They'd fallen out. Both of us have CIT numbers."

"I'm not looking for a reward," Gen said, which was true. Hugo looked a little calmer. After a while they both slept.

The next day he tried getting Hugo out of the apartment, just for a while. Dressed in his clothes, wearing extra socks to make the shoes fit a little better, Hugo looked rumpled and down-at-heel, like most of the people from the apartment blocks. They took the elevator down to ground level and walked slowly around for a quarter of an hour before going back. By the end of the week, there was almost a spring in Hugo's step, and Gen looked up from his highly interesting work one night to discover that the late-night shopper come to bug him and ask where the toilet rolls had moved to was his guest.

"What are you doing out?" he hissed. "How did you find this place?"

"You said you worked in a near-by supermarket, you always walked in this direction and this was the one open at night," Hugo said. He looked at the trolley of jars beside Gen. "What are those?"

"Peppers. In brine. Would you like one, ser?" Gen said as his supervisor, Alicia, walked past the end of the aisle. 

"Thank you," Hugo said, and put the offered jar in his basket. Like he had any way of paying. He smiled and drifted off. Gen swore and followed him, but almost at once came face to face with his supervisor.

"Gen, those peppers are still in their boxes," she said.

"Yeah, I'll put them out in just a minute –"

"Gen, please, I don't want to report you, but Sera March doesn't feel you've been pulling your weight recently."

Gen looked at her pleasant face and nodded. She was bending the rules as much as possible - she could have written him up the last time he missed a shift, but for whatever reason, she liked him. Dead-end employees and azi admin against the bosses. 

"Thank you, Alicia," he said. "I'll put them out now." He turned back to his jars of peppers and waited a few seconds. The coast was clear; having agreed to the proper action, of _course_ he was going to do as he said. There was no need to actually stand there and make him do it. He slipped back around the end of the aisle looking for Hugo.

Gen saw him casually slipping a small packet of the most expensive coffee the supermarket carried into his pocket, and noted that the supermarket's other shelf-stacker was looking at Hugo, a worried look settling on the honest azi face. Dammit. Tim didn't say much, but he was sharp-eyed. There was only one thing for it.

"Ser –" Tim said, standing up.

Gen strode forward, heading straight for the only other shopper he didn't recognise as a late night regular, a pudgy young man whose exhausted expression barely registered that he was the target of the manufactured ire.

"Hey! You! Yeah, _you!_ Alicia, make a security call!"

"What?" the young man said as Gen grabbed his arm. 

As he'd hoped, people began to come to enjoy the show. Tim peeped out from the end of the aisle he'd been working in. Gen slid the small bottle of vodka he'd snatched from the end of a display into his target's pocket. 

"What makes you think you can come into this store and just steal things? This is our local store, man!"

"What the hell? I didn't steal anything!"

"Alicia, I've caught that shoplifter who's been hitting the store recently!"

Alicia hurried up as the man protested his innocence. She stood there a moment, clearly undecided about what to do as the shoppers began to give loud conflicting opinions on dealing with thieves.

The couple who worked the late shift at the construction site downtown offered to take the young man outside and give him some citizens' justice. The young woman who hung around, always too thin and cold-looking but never wearing a coat, was vitriolic in her opinion about people making it hard for honest folk to shop in peace. The woman with the tell-tale signs of rejuv going into failure who always shopped furtively at midnight took the opportunity to decry the morals of modern young people. She glared at the supposed shoplifter, the young woman and Gen too for good measure. Thoroughly alarmed, Alicia fled to put in a call to Sera March. The decoy protested his innocence, even when the bottle was discovered. Gen had to protect his victim from the righteous ire of the construction workers, who tried to shove him around.

"Sers! Seras!" Alicia said, coming back. "Please! The manager will be here very shortly!" She wrung her hands in anxiety, looking from one to another.

Tim came up and shyly murmured to Alicia. There was, thankfully, no sign of Hugo at all.

When Sera March finally showed her face she was grumpy and not really inclined to do much on the say-so of a shelf-stacker. She glared down the shoppers until they reluctantly dispersed, denied their show.

"Let him pay for the vodka and bar him," she snapped.

"Sera," Alicia said, "Gen was suspicious and tried to follow him. He might have stopped the theft, if I hadn't sent him away." She looked very downcast, and Gen felt guilty.

"It's not your fault," Sera March said in a way that sounded like she meant the exact opposite, showing she'd really paid attention in her course on supervising azi. "Of course you didn't believe Gen, he's a rehabilitated criminal."

Gen rolled his eyes. He heard it from her every time she laid eyes on him.

"You, Ser Thief, pay for that and don't come back," Sera March said.

"I didn't steal it!"

"Sera, he may have had an accomplice –"

"Oh, what now?"

"An accomplice? I just came in to buy a sandwich!"

"Tim saw –"

"Tim. Well, I'm sure that Tim thinks he's being helpful."

Tim went bright red, stared at the floor and said something quietly that Gen decoded as _Therewasablack-hairedazi-_

"You would never steal, would you, Tim?" Sera March said, like she was talking to an idiot. As he shook his head in horror she went on, "You see? Azi don't steal things. You made a mistake. Alicia, I'll leave this to you."

"Yes, sera."

She swept out, like she was the manager of some great city department store and Alicia held out her hand for the cost of the vodka. The young man paid and fled. Alicia gathered up Tim and Steffi, the cashier, and told them how well they had comported themselves, and that Sera March was very pleased with her staff. Gen saw her eyeing him, like maybe she wanted to say it to him as well, but thought it wasn't her place to say it to a CIT, or that he'd be rude enough to call her a liar. At the end of his shift he didn't swipe anything, but bought what he could of the discounted stock and went home.

"You," he said, "Are an idiot. That very nearly went extremely badly."

"But it didn't," Hugo said. "You covered wonderfully well, Gen. Look!"

He displayed what was neatly laid out on the table: the coffee, some chocolate, a large tin of salmon and – Gen picked it up in disbelief - a tin of caviar left over from New Year's.

"I took that on my way out the door," Hugo said cheerfully.

"Please don't do that again. The other shelf-stacker saw you. He told my supervisor. He told the store owner. Luckily, she doesn't put much weight on the words of the very people whose contracts she holds."

"Good," Hugo said with a grin.

"Especially when the shy, low-rated one says he saw another azi shoplifting," Gen said. 

Hugo just looked surprised. 

"That's an odd thing to say."

Gen shut up and ate the food that had been prepared for him. It was a lot nicer than he'd have cooked, and there was chocolate for dessert. After they'd eaten he set random things out on the shelves and furniture and made an effort to teach Hugo the finer points of shoplifting. He'd always had better luck when he'd got out with the one friend he'd kept from the group home. He hadn't seen Bruno for years now – it had been one of the conditions of getting off with a smack on the wrist the last time – but the old habits came back fast enough. When to distract, when to lift, when to outright run.

"If all else fails, try offering sexual favours."

"Does that work?" Hugo said, sounding horribly interested.

"Only if you've been grabbed by a CIT, and you've got something to sweeten the deal, like you're too young, or too scared, or too pretty. Can you cry on demand?"

Hugo had now gone to looking worried. That wasn't as much fun. Gen shrugged. 

"Sometimes we really wanted drinks and smokes, what can I say?"

Hugo produced the horrific model of a romanticized cottage that Gen's Mom had always loved out of his sweater. Gen hadn't even noticed it was missing. 

"I think I can get them for you."

It was a good effort in pretending he wasn't feeling pity, so Gen went along with it. They damn well weren't hitting Sera March's store, though. Alicia would have a meltdown.

The first store went well and they got out quickly with a tin of sardines – Hugo – a large block of cheap cheese – Gen – and, incongruously, a rose-scented candle Hugo was very proud of. In the second Hugo dithered too obviously and went back to get a second chocolate bar. Gen's heart sank as the tall, black-clad security guard walked up.

"Ser, please come with me."

The guard wasn't someone easily confused like Tim; straight-forward vandalism it would have to be. Gen grabbed the end of a display of kitchen utensils and flung it on the floor. 

"Fuck this! Where's the damn coffee?" he yelled as everything clashed and rattled around him.

The guard spun around, his taser already out and Gen sprinted away.

"Whoops, sorry!"

He dived and rolled at the right moment, the taser's wire flying over his head, and came up still running, getting out of the door ahead of the guard who had ditched his weapon. One hundred and fifty metres from the store and guard just stopped and glared at him, before returning to his post. Gen blessed the laws that restricted weapons for commercial security, and the guard's supervisor for not giving permission for a proper pursuit. Hugo was looking in another store widow, shifting from foot to foot on the other side of the street. Gen strolled past and watched Hugo slowly make his way along on his side of the street until finally Gen ducked into a café and Hugo came over to join him.

"I'm sorry!" Hugo said at once.

"I'm fine. Are you? Did you have to try to run?"

"I just walked out quickly." He looked annoyed with himself. "I shouldn't have gone to the same shelf twice, I know."

"Never mind. You don't have to be good at it. We've got enough."

"I want to contribute. I'm eating up your wages."

"Nah. Don't worry about it. Let's have something to eat."

He got tea and sandwiches for them both and decided against taking Hugo on any more shopping trips for a while. That had been too close. Hugo still took a filled roll from a kiosk when Gen stopped to buy cigarettes, to salve his pride as much as anything. They shared it that evening as a snack.

* * *

People asking questions showed up two days later, like they had been following a trail of petty crime and sightings. Gen was as busy as he got, making sure that the tinned vegetables were neatly shelved, all the labels facing forwards in a ruler-straight line. It was the sort of work that Tim actually enjoyed, but he'd never found it all that stimulating, himself. Maybe he actually should come up with some exciting novel. Hugo could do the writing part of it for him, and them Sera March could stuff her civic mindedness in employing rehabilitated CITS and the way she spoke to her staff in general and him in particular.

"Hey."

He looked around at the man who had come up to him. Warm coat, warm sweater, very nondescript. Built like a slab of muscle, and definitely a CIT. All his clothes were too new and nice looking for the guy to actually live in the area, though maybe he thought they were very plain and ordinary.

"Hey."

"I got myself turned around a bit. That's Saransk Road, right? Where the subway is?" He jerked a thumb towards the entrance.

"No, turn left out the door and it’s the first right. The subway's about five hundred metres down to the right on Saransk," Gen said. Who the hell mixed up Saransk Road and Moss Street? Even this end of Saransk was bigger and busier than a residential street with a crappy supermarket.

"Thanks. I'm new in the area," the guy said. "I guess this is my local store. Are those any good?" He nodded at the tins Gen was stacking.

"They're all right if you like tomatoes," Gen said. "They're just plain. We don't stock ones with herbs and that shit. You'll have to go back into town for them."

"Plain food's what I'm used to," the guy said, grinning like they were on the way to being friends. "I'm trying to find a friend's apartment, but I'm really lost. I can't remember the address, but I think he must shop in here. Maybe you've seen him? He's about your height, kind of thin and pale, has black hair that really needs a decent cut, green eyes –"

"Sorry," Gen shrugged. "I only look when it's a girl."

"Thanks anyway," the guy said, and went off to buy a can of tomatoes he clearly didn't want. 

Gen went back to shelving and didn't watch him go. He had no desire for such an obvious security man to catch him being anything other than a low paid drone. He was careful when he left in the early morning and wandered into a nearby café, eyes down, hands in pockets, pretending he didn’t see the same guy talking to locals making their way to work. He sat over a mug of weak coffee and a roll for an hour before emerging to an empty street and cautiously making his way home. Hugo looked alarmed at the news, but wasn't able to shed any light on the man's identity.

The next day he saw two similarly dressed men a lot nearer the apartment block and as he left for work he saw the man who had come to the supermarket talking to a woman he was sure lived in the next block over. She held the hand of her little daughter and looked at a photo he held out, shaking her head. Gen got to the nearest phone booth and rang the supermarket to say that he couldn't come in.

"Sera March said you can only remain in employment if you're reliable, Gen," Alicia said. She sounded genuinely unhappy. She probably was.

"I am," he said. "I'm just not feeling well, Alicia. It's not wrong to take time off if you're sick. Sera March shouldn't expect anyone to work when they're not well. Alicia, I'm not on probation anymore, with the courts _or_ with the store. Please."

There was a long silence.

"I clearly remember Ser March telling me that citizens have rights under employment law to avail of sick leave," Alicia said at last. "I am unaware as to whether citizens under legal rehabilitation have lost that right since Ser March died. It would be wrong for me to deprive a citizen of their rights without sure knowledge of what is appropriate. It would reflect badly on my late Supervisor." "Thank you," Gen said in relief. The years of managing the store and dealing with customers and staff had socialised Alicia probably a little too well for Sera March's liking, not that the woman was capable of thinking that the supermarket staff had feelings or preferences. She hadn't even bothered to give the azi tape to assure them of her proper abilities to hold their contracts after her husband's death. As far as Gen could see they had decided to live as if Ser March was unavoidably and temporarily absent. After all this time Alicia was more than capable of playing favourites. He was so glad he had never even looked like he'd thought of looking down his nose at her, or Tim or Steffi. 

"Please come in tomorrow," she said. "I may be informed by Sera March of what is appropriate if she finds that you haven't been in." 

"I promise," he said. "Thanks, Alicia. You're the best."

"Get some rest, Gen. Goodbye."

He went home, keeping an eye out. Everything seemed fine. Hugo was in the kitchen, polishing the sink. Who polished sinks? No one Gen had ever heard of. Maybe they trained you to do that when you were a teacher.

"There are guys looking for you," he said without preamble, and gave a description. Hugo kept wiping down the sink, but you could see his heart wasn't in it any more.

"I can't say that I recognise anyone in particular," Hugo said. "I certainly don't know them."

"I think they might be looking for someone who broke into their lab and caused damage, don't you?" Gen heaved a sigh. "Or someone who broke out of their lab?"

"I don't know why they called Katarina and me runaways," Hugo said. "We met while I was training to be a teacher. We both had identification. CIT numbers. It's nonsense."

"I'm not turning you in even if you're an abolitionist terrorist," Gen said. "I just want to get you somewhere safer, away from this area. For a few days, until they move the search on."

"Where?" Hugo said. "I don't really have anywhere to go – I'm sure they've been rounding up the people I knew. And if I try to access my account they'll know, won't they?"

"Yeah," Gen said. "If they know your CIT number. Would they?" He shrugged, turning away from the question. "I have – had – a friend. I haven't spoken to him in a few years, but we can go to the places he used to go. If nothing else I'm hoping to see someone who can give me his current number."

"Do you think he'll help?"

"I have no idea. We were real good friends once, we got in a lot of trouble together. I think he'd hide you for a night or two, not ask any questions."

"He's a criminal," Hugo said, his eyes widening.

Gen laughed at that, thinking of the kid stuff they'd got up to. It wasn't like they'd turned over the People's Bank of Novgorod.

"He went through rehabilitation, like me. I'm sure he's a fine, upstanding citizen now."

"Like you. Harbouring murderers and stealing from shops."

"You can't remember what happened in the lab. Don't swerve from that story. We don't want Bruno to have second thoughts about sharing his luxurious home with you." He went up and lifted a lock of Hugo's hair. "Maybe I should cut this. Make you look a bit different."

"Can't I just hide it under a hat when I'm outside?"

"Yeah, maybe. I'm no good at haircuts, anyway. We'll head out when it's dark, I've already arranged things with the store."

They ate, and dressed warmly, Gen tucking all of Hugo's hair under an unflattering soft cap. He gave him the warmer pair of gloves and put on two pairs of ragged ones. At least the holes were in different places. He had his own coat, and Hugo was in an old one that  
Gen thought had belonged to his dad, as he had been when they went shoplifting. It was too loose, and disguised his shape nicely. 

"We're gonna get the subway," he said. "Just keep cool and act like you get it all the time."

"I do," Hugo said.

"You know what I mean. Be alert on the way to the station, but don't act like you're expecting a monster to leap out from behind every door, OK? That makes a guy stand out. We're gonna go to a club I used to go to and hopefully Bruno still goes there, or someone who knew him will still go there. Or that it won't be under new management."

Hugo looked worried; Gen did his best to keep his own worry under wraps. Bruno would have every right to be angry at him for not being in touch for so long. He'd had a note from him six months after he'd been dumped back in his family's apartment the last time, and had torn it up. It had been carefully written, like Bruno'd been doing his best to make his own crappy writing legible, and hadn't been much more than a phone number and a plea to get in touch. Gen had been too dedicated to getting rehabilitated without intervention to bother with it.

They were a couple of minutes from the station when the guy who had spoken to Gen in the supermarket stepped out of a doorway.

"He's coming with us," he said, his eyes on Hugo.

Gen didn't bother saying anything. He aimed a blow at the man's face, and yelled, "Run!"

His fist never landed. Someone else tackled him from the doorway, sending him flying, and gaining their feet to sprint back down the road even as Gen landed ass-down on the concrete. The first man took off as well. Gen staggered back up and forced himself to run after them. He hoped to hell that Hugo was well in front. He tried not to think about how much a gut wound would slow anyone down.

The two men ran around the corner onto Novospassky Laneway. Thank God, if Hugo had gone through there he had a range of options. There was a whole warren of little streets back there. Gen forced some extra speed and gained some lost ground. He saw Hugo's pursuers briefly confer and then run to the left, not into the maze of residential streets. Gen got to the end of the alleyway and looked to the left – down there was some office complex and a little park the companies in the offices maintained. He saw the guy who had tackled him vault over the low fence at the park entrance and picked up the pace again.

The park was dark and shadowed and seemed much larger at night than it could possibly be. 

"We have him, send back-up! Send back-up!" Gen heard, and the crackle of a radio. 

He ran towards the voice and found Hugo at bay, his face hidden in the shadows of the tress he stood under. Gen flung himself on the back of the man with the radio, getting a good punch in to the side of his head. 

"Shit!"

Gen was flung off, the man straightening up with an annoyed glare as he pulled a metal rod from his belt and flicked an extendable baton open. Shit, it was gonna _hurt_. Gen got ready to try to dodge and - the man went down, not even time to look shocked. Gen blinked at the bloodied stone lying beside him. It had made a mess of his opponent's face. He didn't have time to throw up: he grabbed the fallen man's weapon and headed for the other fight.

Hugo was somehow dodging the other man's blows. The other guy was fast, but didn't seem to be able to land a blow with his baton. Gen slashed a solid, heavy blow across the guy's lower thigh that should have him limping for a week. The bastard did something that made Hugo jump back then just turned and grabbed the baton from Gen, twisting in a calm way that took it right out of his hand. 

Gen backed off a bit. Dammit, this guy was some sort of security azi, far better trained than he could hope to take down. The guy turned back to Hugo, a baton in either hand, and just stopped. He dropped both batons and his hands went to his throat, then he collapsed down to his knees and keeled over. Gen took a cautious step nearer and froze at the sight of the kitchen knife thrust right through the guy's throat. Damn. He looked up at Hugo's shocked face, and did the only thing he could. He grabbed the knife and pulled it free in a rush of blood, grabbed the batons as well and then tugged Hugo away.

"Put this in your pocket," he said, collapsing one baton. He secreted the other and the knife under his coat. 

Hugo didn't say anything at all as they hurried down side streets and finally got back to the apartment. Gen put both batons and the knife in the sink, to be scrubbed of any possible DNA traces before disposal. His torn gloves were even more torn now. They should go out as well, there could be DNA traces on them.

"Let's see the wound," he said, and Hugo numbly disrobed. It was weeping, but hadn't reopened. "Does it hurt?"

Hugo nodded, so he got a few of what was left of the painkillers. Then they just sat and stared at each other.

"How were you able to fight that guy?" Gen said at last. "He was a security azi. And you took the other one out with a stone. Dammit, Hugo."

"I don't know," Hugo said. "I just - could." He buried his face in his hands. "I killed that man, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Gen said, because there was no getting around it. "I don't know about the other one, but he wasn't looking good."

"I saw he was about to hit you," Hugo said in a thread of a voice, "and I just knew I had to stop him. Then the stone was in my hand, I don't even remember picking it up and then he was flying backwards. Gen, I can't even throw things into the wastepaper basket from half that distance."

"You did a tape learning session on it," Gen said, because it was the only answer.

"And when did I reinforce that with the physical training to cement my muscle memory?"

They just stared at each other again, and then Gen got the bottle of vodka and poured it out into two tumblers. They weren't going out again, that was for damn sure. They dozed uneasily on and off through the night, jerking awake at the slightest noise. As soon as it was morning Gen made sure he was clean of every splash of blood and crept out, leaving Hugo nervously behind as he went to lose the batons and knife. He took the long way back to the apartment and bought a cheap cup of tea while he waited for a Citizen's Advice Bureau to open. Hugo needed more help than he could give him, that was damn sure. He came away with a lawyer's card and an appointment. 

The next day he was sitting in a crowded, dusty office across town, trying to explain his situation to Ser Rin with his too-young face, and Ser Sokolov, who was far too CIT-like for an azi recently given his citizenship. It seemed to be a problem that people who knew things about _Beautiful Life_ labs were familiar with.

* * *

"Tell me again, Ser Cho, about this children's home you were in," Rin said, setting aside the cup of coffee like he'd been handed a mug of hot, liquid shit.

"We were all under the age of ten, I'd say," Hugo said patiently. "All but two of us were boys – the girls were fostered quickly, I suppose." He eyed the discarded drink. "Would you prefer tea?"

"No. Do you remember names?"

"Of the other children? Paul and Paula – they were twins, they looked very much alike. To be honest, I felt rather sorry for them, that their parent had had so little imagination when it came to naming them. Martin – he was much taller than most of us, but he was the same age as me. Vera – she had such straight hair, very thick, absolutely black. Chris – he was very good at jumping, and Tom – he liked machines. He could take things apart and put them back together."

"Surnames?" Rin said.

Hugo paused. "Martin Weisenfreund?" he said, like it was a question someone would know the answer to. "We were small children, Ser Rin. We used each other's given names."

"So you were there from the ages of approximately eight to eleven. And then with a foster family?"

"Two foster families. The first dissolved after the domestic partnership was annulled and the domestic assets were divided. I was placed with a single fosterer from the ages of fifteen to eighteen."

"And those are the names and addresses you gave me earlier."

"Yes, although I think all members of the first family have moved from that address; I've never had responses to the New Year's cards I send them. I haven't kept in touch with my second fosterer. We didn't really have the same views on many things." Hugo sighed and leant forwards. "Can you help me? I know Gen told you what happened – nothing was reported on the news channels. They've covered it up. Why would they do that?"

Goran and Rin exchanged glances. 

" _Beautiful Life_ doesn't like bad publicity," Goran said. "They have enough of that with the attack on the lab. They won't want people associating their name with azi fighting in the streets."

"He attacked us," Hugo said earnestly. "It was self-defence."

"What's the earliest thing you can remember?" Rin said suddenly.

"It's warm and dark; I feel safe. I know I'm good," Hugo said. He blinked, and laughed. "That's a sort of a dream I have on and off. No, I suppose it's being given a fruit ice by –" an odd look came over his face. " – my father?"

"What's your father's given name?"

"I – don't know. I don't even know how he died," Hugo said. "It must have been when I was very young. He was old fashioned. I always called him _Ser_."

"You had no siblings?"

"No. It was just my father and me. Then I was in the home – I don't remember actually _going_ to the home. I must have had therapy after my father's death."

"Indeed," Rin said, looking over his reading glasses. "Ser Cho. I've been doing some preliminary work. Your CIT-number is not in use, and you appear to have died in a vehicular accident some years ago as a small child."

Hugo looked at him blankly. "No," he said. "That's not right. I got _paid_ , Ser Rin. I was approved for work with _children_. I paid taxes!"

"Yes," Rin said. "Your tax records show that you notified the authorities immediately once you established a two-person household – you are an honest young man, which I'm sure infuriated some people. You also registered your address for voting. And then you recently caused enough trouble so that whoever was supposed to properly expunge the evidence of your existence couldn't finish the job."

Hugo looked down.

"I don't remember," he said, which Gen was coming less and less to believe was the truth. Hugo remembered organising his college friends perfectly well, using them as a distraction – he looked at Rin as a thought occurred.

"Hey, did you find if Hugo actually did get this certificate in education?"

"I'm working on it. Ser Cho, I'd like you to give my assistant all the information about your instructors there, and also the information about your place of employment." 

Hugo nodded and began writing everything down. Rin watched him for a while, then snorted and turned to Gen. "This area's not safe, _Beautiful Life_ obviously suspects he's somewhere around here. We have a safe house, he should come with us."

"I'm going nowhere without Gen," Hugo said, still writing.

Rin sighed. "Fine. Can you pack? I'll call for a car."

"You are still doing this for free, right?" Gen said.

"Just pack."

Gen threw clothes into two small bags and paused as he saw the tape console. He had the strongest urge to pack it too, or just to use it right then and there, to let himself sink under the pull of kat and the tape and feel like a kid again. He grimaced; he was being a fool. He didn't want to feel like a helpless kid; he wanted Jonny to come back and save him again. 

He took a deep breath. He had to be the one doing the helping now. Mom had really messed him up with this stupid machine, and he still loved her as the only mother he'd ever been allowed to know. Maybe he should try to stop that foolishness too. He closed his eyes and deliberately pictured the console held in hands reddened by ceaseless housework, then kissed his own fingertips and imagined putting his hand over the chapped fingers. He carefully stowed the unit back in the closet and closed the door. 

The safe house proved to be a tiny apartment halfway across the city, with a small kitchenette and dining area, and a bedroom barely big enough for the bed. The bathroom door didn't open all the way, hitting against the toilet.

"I'll get an inflatable mattress and extra blankets," Goran said, looking around the dining area. "There should be room for it here."

"Thanks," Gen said. 

Hugo didn't say anything, which was probably for the best.

"I'll lose my job if I don't go in tonight," Gen said. "Where's the nearest subway station?"

"Seriously? Can't you take the night off?" Rin said, as Goran said, 

"There's one in New Street, that's west of here, or one down in University Square to the south. You can get a direct line back to your district from University Square, but it's about a twenty five minute walk. New Street's closer."

"Thanks."

"It's ridiculous," Rin said. "Why risk it?"

"I need to be able to support us once all of this is over," Gen said. Damn, people with well paid jobs just didn't get it.

"You're keeping Ser Cho, then? Does he get a say in the matter?"

As Gen spluttered in indignation, Hugo calmly said, "I appreciate everything that Gen has done for me. He's been a true friend when I needed one. I am very grateful that he has opened his home to me, and I'm even more grateful that he wants to continue to help."

Rin looked at them both in silence then shrugged.

"Take care," he said.

"I'll try to take some time off. Apart from a night off every week I've never actually taken any leave. I'm probably owed some, right?"

"Yes," Rin said dryly. "You are. Are you asking me to represent you in a labour suit as well?" 

He and Goran left soon after, with Goran promising to return with extra supplies. Gen and Hugo explored the apartment as much as possible, finding basic food that would easily last a week, an extra blanket in the little cabinet in the bedroom and some very basic hygiene and medical supplies in the bathroom. The bed was hard and big enough for two very friendly people.

"My CIT number is real," Hugo said, out of nowhere.

"Yeah. How else would you have a job? Or paid taxes? That's the really _real_ thing," Gen said. "You can't fool the taxman. At least, not for long."

"I really am qualified as an instructor," Hugo said. "I have the certificate." He paused. "But I don't remember entering the institute of education, or even applying for it. I remember being there, and studying – both tape learning sessions and in person classes. It's where I met Katarina, and the people who tried to help me save her. _Gen_ \- those people are very definitely real! The fire they set was real! I did study there." He looked away. "I know you believe me."

Gen put a hand on his shoulder. For someone who obviously missed Katharina, Hugo could tuck away his grief better than any CIT he'd ever met, just so he could focus on wo he was with right then. And he was a hell of a good deep study learner if he could fight like that from a few sessions he couldn't even remember. Who even took on so many extra courses just to keep their minds busy?

"Sure I believe it. How else did you get that job?"

Hugo smiled wanly, like he didn't believe the reassurance. He saved them both from further miserable conversation by making as best a meal as he could from the supplies. They were cleaning up afterwards when Goran came back with the mattress and a large bag of tinned food. He set the mattress up and put a thick new blanket over it.

"I managed to get through to your employers," he said and shook his head at Hugo's hopeful look. "It's not great news. They had nothing but good things to say about you and hope you'll be back soon, once your aunt has recovered. You're on compassionate leave; you rang them to explain."

Hugo went pale.

"Are you going to tell me you think someone ran tape on me without me knowing and then I made that call?"

"No," Goran said patiently. "I think they tapped your phone and constructed a fake call that sounded like you." He looked at Gen and flicked his eyes to the other room. "Do you have enough pillows and stuff?"

"I can check," Gen said, knowing how to take a hint, and went off to sit on the bed until Goran had finished whatever he needed to say.

"C'mon, jump to a less paranoid conclusion, would you?" he heard Goran mutter. "It'll make you sound marginally less like a runaway." His voice took on a slight edge. "Though while we're on the subject, there's nothing wrong with being an azi and going around playing like you’re a born-man is pretty ridiculous."

"And when did you take Final Tape? It's not legal before the age of eighteen," Hugo said quietly in a tone Gen had never heard from him. "Rin must have pulled quite some strings to be allowed to bring you up as a CIT; although if he was looking for either an heir or a student you'd think he'd have gone for a slightly higher Rezner classification."

"So much for you not knowing," Goran said. "Hey, Gen," he called. "How's the pillow situation?"

" Fine," Gen said, coming back. "Everything OK here?"

"Sure," Goran said easily. "I was just telling Hugo that I received Citizen status. It was when I was quite young, I don't think I told you that, Gen?"

"Look, man, I'm sorry I came off as being rude before –"

"No, it's OK, " Goran said, his eyes on Hugo. "You didn't talk to me in that weird way lots of people do when they talk to azi or people who've become CITs. You know, like they're talking to idiots or goldfish? You should know that my gene-set is licenced to a few labs, but me? I'm from _Beautiful Life_."

Both Hugo and Gen were immediately alert and Goran rolled his eyes.

"I'm not working for them. I'm one of their projects; my identification says I used to be designated gamma-class, except that my creche-mates and me were testing out much higher, with all sorts of interesting capabilities. Perfectly stable gene sets, used for decades, and suddenly there's a change. _Someone_ was getting inventive."

"And Ser Rin represented you, did he?" Hugo said, still sounding rather unfriendly and a bit superior.

"Yeah. In a way. He worked in their legal department. Eventually he decided he wanted his soul back. Kyr tried to blow the whistle and quit when he found that I was the last of fifteen boys with my designation and scheduled to be put down like all the rest," Goran said. "They offered him a sure way to save my life: I was part of a settlement package, and I had citizenship papers within a year. He signed an NDA."

"How old were you?" Hugo said.

"Ten. I've had almost a decade of citizenship, it's why I can fake the CIT-stuff so well." Goran smiled politely, looking suddenly less CIT-like. "Should we try again? I'm sure that my designation isn't worth the file it's encoded in, but I'm Goran GG-6139." He gave a slight bow of the head.

Hugo looked at him, at Gen and back to Goran.

"Hugo AH-8422," he said finally. "Gen, I'm sorry."

"D'you think I care?" Gen said. "Do you think I'd hold it against you, or something?"

"I did go to that advanced institute," Hugo said. "I did meet Katarina there, I was in a children's institution, I have a CIT number – but inside I always knew I had that designation."

"Kyr thinks you were always intended to live out in the world by yourself for a while," Goran said gently. "He's found some other stuff this afternoon; you and Katarina both seem to appear in the civic records just before you attend the institute. Her CIT number was a dead citizen child's as well. Both children were related to workers in the _Beautiful Life_ labs –"

"I loved her from the moment I saw her," Hugo said quietly. He looked up sharply. "It was all a lie, that's what you're saying. They ran tape on us and we recognised each other from a deep-session. Our whole lives were just some constructed thing to be picked apart, like they did to _her_ -"

Gen reached a hand out to him, thinking of the way he had sunk rapidly down that first night when the awfulness of this situation had hit home, but it wasn't despair in Hugo's voice and face. It was absolute fury. Gen dropped his hand down. He had never considered any azi being angry before, had never even thought that it was possible. It made him think that Hugo really was a CIT after all. Then Hugo took a breath and all the anger was gone, his face calm and showing only mild interest in the proceedings.

"What did you do in the labs that night?" Goran said.

"I got some justice."

Goran leant forward a little. "Are you worried about that?"

"Only about the azi who got in my way."

Goran looked at Gen. "Do you mind Gen hearing this?"

Hugo sighed. "I'm sorry to lose your good opinion, Gen. I do think you can be taken at your word not to look down on azi, though."

Gen shrugged uneasily. "They hurt you and they hurt someone you loved. Who wouldn't lose their shit?"

"What happened to Katarina?" Goran said.

Hugo wasn't looking at anything in the room. "When I found her, she – wasn't who she had been. In any way. I set her free." He looked down at his hands and didn't say anything else.

After a moment, Gen went and put a hand on his shoulder.

"You gotta help him," he said to Goran. "Your lawyer friend, he can do this, right? Even if he got his law degree while he was still in diapers?"

"Don't be an idiot," Goran said. "He went on rejuv early. I've never known him to look anything other than like that." He got up. "I'll see you tomorrow. Are you sure you need to go to work tonight?"

Gen looked at Hugo's bowed shoulders. They needed the money.

"I can't ask for another sick day. I don't suppose you can get me a night off tonight?"

"Give me thirty minutes," Goran said, and made a call to Rin, quoting incomprehensible strings of numbers. Gen could hear the yelling at the other end perfectly well, though the words weren't all that clear. The sound of a phone slamming down was obvious, though. "He'll ring back," Goran said, sounding optimistic. Fifteen minutes later, Rin did. There was no yelling this time, at least not until he got to the bit about Goran getting his goddam ass back to the damn office. That was clear as a bell.

"I've gotta go, if I'm going," Gen said. "It'll take forever to get over there."

"Hang tight," Goran said. "Give it another little while."

Twenty minutes after that, he shoved the phone at Gen.

"Ring and say you'll be a bit late. Tell them you were ill earlier or something."

"Fine, fine," Gen grumbled. He rang, Goran sticking close to listen in. "Hello? Alicia! It's Gen – I'm really sorry, I'm going to be late for my shift, but I'll make it up at the other end. I wasn't well –"

"Gen," Alicia said with relief. "I thought you must have already left your home, and didn't want you to have wasted your time. The store is closed, tonight and all of tomorrow. There's a municipal sanitary inspection. Sera March isn't pleased. She says to tell you she won't pay for tonight or tomorrow."

"Tell her that's illegal," Goran whispered. "Establishments breaching the city sanitary codes must pay their citizen workforce for any time missed while the establishment is brought up to standard."

"She has to pay me, it's the law," Gen said, feeling reckless. If Sera March tried to sack him, maybe he could persuade Goran and Rin to go after her. "I know she likes to feel better than me where keeping the law's concerned, so that'll be two shifts of pay she owes me. Unless she's a criminal."

"Gen," Alicia said reprovingly as there was an indignant shriek in the background. "You know Sera March is of the highest morals. Of course she'll obey the law."

The shrieking about how Gen was fired turned into shrieks about Alicia's stupidity. The line went dead.

"You'd think she'd notice how much her own azi despise her and work around her," Gen said, his amusement at Sera March's indignation fading away as he realised who the insult would be taken out on. "Shit, that was stupid. I've lost a job for the sake of a moment's satisfaction."

"Maybe I should give Kyr's card to this Alicia," Goran said. He shrugged. "Can't save the world. See you tomorrow."

The evening passed uneventfully. They drank some coffee and put the extra blankets on the bed. At long last, Hugo actually looked at Gen.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I kept that from you, and now you’ve probably lost your job."

"I'll find something else, or Rin'll sort it out," Gen said, although the pool of employers willing to take on someone like him seemed to grow smaller each year. "I don't blame you for wanting to keep secrets."

"I don't suppose it matters, but I both knew and didn't know," Hugo said. "When I was awake I knew I'd been orphaned and had later met a wonderful woman while I was training. When I dreamed, or was half-awake, I knew something else, although it took a long time to put a name to it." He looked soberly at Gen. "I preferred being the CIT Hugo Cho."

"You knew when you broke into the lab?" Gen said.

Hugo sighed.

"We both knew before that. We had dreams, tape-flashes. It's the real reason we hadn't formalised our union – we weren't sure how far our identifications would hold up. Katarina said we should, that the more we lived as CITs, the less likely we'd be targeted. I wish we'd done it – what if she was right, Gen?"

"You paid tax, you'd registered your address for voting purposes – they still came after you," Gen said. 

Hugo nodded. He silently went into the bedroom and crept under the covers. Gen went after him and put his arms around him, ignoring the way that he kept his back firmly turned and stayed glumly quiet. After a while Hugo turned around and put a hand on Gen's face. He kissed Gen in a way that indicated he didn't really want to discuss anything, but did want to be distracted. Gen could do distraction just fine; he kissed him back, then slowly made his way down Hugo's body, avoiding the well-healing wound, to take his cock in his mouth, licking at the underside before sucking gently. It seemed to be doing the trick of distracting Hugo, given the gasps and the way he was trying to keep still. Finally with a small, quiet sound Hugo's back arched and he came, flooding Gen's mouth with heat and wetness. They lay wrapped up in each other, warm and comfortable, and at last Hugo dropped into what seemed to be restful sleep. It wasn't the awful sinking into fugue that he'd done on the first night, so Gen just held him and closed his own eyes against the miseries of the day.

* * *

When Gen went back to the supermarket, he was shocked to discover that he still had a job although Sera March came in especially to stick her nose in the air and sweep past him without acknowledging his existence. Whatever, it meant he could pick up a bottle of the crappy vodka they stocked and shovel as much of the discounted section into a basket as he could carry. Most importantly, he got employee's discount on top of everything; he still wasn't sure if Sera March knew about that, but Alicia had agreed that it was a normal benefit extended to employees. One of these days Sera March was gonna realise just how independently minded Alicia had got over the decades, and was gonna do something about that. He really should give her Rin's card.

Back in the safe house he made an omelette of his discounted eggs and almost out-of-date ham and cheese and served it to Hugo with a flourish.

"Best dining in Novgorod, Citizen. Made by the best-looking cook."

"I certainly agree," Hugo said, and tucked in. "You're still employed?"

"Seems so. There's a bit of a tax break for employing a part-rehabilitated low-life like me. Good old Sera March wouldn't want to actually fire me and have to deal with finding someone new who'd maybe done something serious. Not at short notice anyway." He shrugged. "She'll get rid of me sooner or later. I should look around for a new place, I guess."

"You could get a certificate in a trade."

"Sure. How do I get certified without having a full rehabilitation? And how do I catch up with everyone who's had a proper education from day one?"

Hugo looked at him patiently, like he was a little kid who needed Teacher's full attention.

"Really, Gen. Are you going to complain that you missed out on your primary schooling when you're one hundred and forty years old? You do seem to have just about enough time to catch up."

Gen looked at him then shrugged. He had a point. "Maybe you could go over a book or something with me like you said. I might be able to read right before I'm eighty."

Hugo smiled.

"I'm better than that. Before you're sixty."

Gen laughed, then drank some coffee to cover a moment's confusion. Most of the time Hugo didn't seem like an azi at all, and it was strange to know finally that he'd been right in his original suspicions. Whatever the lab had been aiming for, they had created something peculiar and unique. Someone he was liking more and more, and who he was treating like a citizen in one really important way.

"Hey," he said, looking down into his mug. "Rin says I need a license to have interactions with you. Including sex."

Hugo took a precise drink of his coffee and put his mug down, turning it neatly so the handle was at the perfect angle for him to pick it up gracefully.

"I've heard that about Alpha class azi," he said at last, and looked up. "But let us focus on the end of all of this, Gen. I am Hugo Cho, CIT-4-65-98-55-0134 and who I fuck is my own business."

* * *

The next day Rin rang and yelled a lot.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Goran says you're going to that damn supermarket job!"

"Yeah," Gen said. "We can't all be lawyers, man. How else am I supposed to support me and Hugo?"

"You've got food! If you need something else, tell Goran! Why the fuck do you think he comes over with stuff for you every day? We'll both be over in an hour – stay the hell inside!"

"OK, OK," Gen grumbled, and hung up. "That guy's gonna have a heart attack," he said. "I've had no problems going to or coming from work. You liked the stuff I got, right?"

"Yes, Gen," Hugo said at once. "Maybe we should stay in, though, and eat what they provide."

"Rin buys cheaper shit than I do." He put on another pot of coffee. "Though maybe they'll bring fresh coffee and fancy pastries from some upmarket café for meeting their valued clients, what do you think?"

"I don't think they're that sort of legal firm," Hugo said in amusement.

"Damn, they'll have left the office if they're aiming to be here in an hour," Gen said, looking at the clock. "I should have said to bring me more smokes."

"You could run out now?"

"The nearest shop is down at the New Street station; I'd be gone over twenty minutes. I'll wait."

He wasn't looking forward to being yelled at in person, but had decided he might as well get it over with when the knock came on the door.

"Keep your fingers crossed for those pastries," he said, and opened it. His head was snapped back hard against the wall as the door was shoved back at high speed. His vision darkened for a moment as a hand grabbed his face and slammed his head into the wall a second time, kicking his feet out from under him. He had a vague impression of movement past and staggered upright.

"Fuck!"

There was a loud crash and Hugo yelled in pain. Gen found a turn of speed from sheer fright and charged into the sitting room, still seeing stars from his head hitting the wall. Oh, _fuck_. One attacker was down, bleeding badly on the floor, another looked horribly scalded like Hugo had got him with a fresh kettle of boiling of water, but the man was still on his feet. Two uninjured men had Hugo sinking down on his knees, one of them having just punched him in the side. Azi, Gen thought, all security trained. Number five was standing to the side, and turned to look at him. This guy was a CIT, it was clear in the sheer nasty pleasure in his eyes.

"Take him down too," he said, and the scalded azi came for Gen fast.

Gen got a blow in right at the worst part of the blistered skin before his arm was seized and twisted behind him.

"Dammit, you'll break my arm!"

"Then go _down,_ " the azi said. He sounded pretty pissed off about the whole situation, which Gen couldn't blame him for.

"Call me _ser_ and I'll think about it – shit."

His arm was levered higher and his leg kicked from under him. A booted foot hit his knee in a way that meant he wasn't going dancing for a while. It hurt like hell but was designed to subdue, not fracture his kneecap.

"Stay there," his new friend said in a tone that clearly meant _I'll give you_ ser _, you CIT bastard_. Gen decided he wasn't going to thank him for not breaking his leg after all.

"What a mess," the CIT said, stepping forward to look down at Hugo. "This could all have been avoided, Ser Shaw. All right. Misha, sedate this one. Then you and Peter carry him out. Dimi, kill Shaw."

"Fuck! Dimi, don't listen to him -" Gen shut up as his arm was forced higher.

There was a heavy silence in the room.

"Ser? What about Paul?" one of the men holding Hugo said.

"Yes, yes, bring him," the CIT said in irritation as the man holding Gen down said,

"Ser, should I not just render Shaw unconscious –"

"He's seen my face," the CIT said. "Kill him."

"You don't want to do this, Dimi, " Gen said urgently, looking up. "You know you don't."

"It'll be painless," Dimi said, putting one hand under Gen's chin and the other firmly on his head, but his mouth was set in a thin line of distaste.

Hugo looked up.

"Giraud Nye," he said, loudly and clearly.

The CIT froze. No one else moved either, and Gen felt Dimi's hands loosen slightly, like he was glad to put off outright murder for a few seconds more. Gen knew just how he felt.

"What?"

"Giraud Nye. In Reseune. I rang his office. About your lab."

"You _what?_ When? _How?_ "

"I'm sorry, Gen," Hugo said, looking over, "I just couldn't see another way. I went out while you were at work and found the contact numbers of Reseune's Novgorod offices."

"He's lying," the CIT said. "Sedate him. There's no way you could have reached Nye's office."

"The trouble with you people," Hugo said, acid dripping from his voice, "Is you think azi are robots. You say _Jump_ , the dumb annie says _How high, ser?_ You don't even notice your own men caring about the welfare of their friend, or having more morals about the taking of life than you. The thing about Reseune is, _ser_ , that azi outnumber CITs there by what? Ten to one? Fifteen to one? More? Do you know who I got on the phone when I rang, right here in Novgorod, ser?"

"Sedate him," the CIT said.

Neither Misha nor Peter moved.

"I didn't get anyone with a CIT number. And I was passed to his superior, who didn't have a CIT number, and so on up the line, until I was on a long distance call, because the making of Alpha azis is very serious, _ser_ , and you're right, of course, of course, there's no way that someone like me would ever get to speak to Ser Nye himself but you should ask yourself how else I know the name Abban-AA, and ask if _he_ might speak to Ser Nye every damn day of the week."

"You're lying," the CIT said in horror. "You can't have spoken to them – they'll take you over there and you'll never be seen again."

"I'll take my chances," Hugo said. "My lawyer knows all about it, don't you, Ser Rin?"

"Yeah," Rin said, a little breathlessly, from the doorway. He regarded the scene with some disgust. "I've been dealing with this for my client."

"Shit," Goran said behind him. "Hey, you, let go of them."

"We don't take orders from you," Dimi said, his hands tightening uncomfortably on Gen again.

"Could you at least agree not to kill me?" Gen said. "Maybe go get that scald looked at?"

Dimi gave him a look that was scalding all by itself. Gen quietened down.

"Tylor, you're still an idiot," Rin said. "These men have legal representation, and you are trespassing on my property. Get the hell out and take your security detail with you."

"This is the property of _Beautiful Life_ and is coming with us," Tylor said, indicating Hugo. 

"Not since I contacted Reseune," Hugo said quickly.

"Lying little –" Tylor muttered, looking like he was about to hit him.

"I can't lie," Hugo said. "Check your records. I'm so honest that I paid every demi-credit of tax I might ever owe, where a CIT might search for loopholes and exemptions."

"I've never known an azi to lie, ser," one of the men holding Hugo said, his face open and clear as only the perfectly innocent could be.

Gen had to admire what had to be outright revenge for Tylor's willingness to leave their wounded comrade and make Dimi commit murder. He was still shocked that Hugo had taken such an irrevocable step. Everyone said that Reseune was an over-funded private kingdom run by a couple of families as their own little playpen, churning out azi and scientific discoveries that no ordinary person needed. He'd never see Hugo again.

"You'll have a world of trouble coming your way," Rin said in satisfaction. "And not before time."

"You were always a troublemaker," Tylor said in fury. "Let them go. Pick Paul up. Let's go."

"I'll be in touch later," Rin said. "There'll be some things your people will want to discuss."

Tylor stormed off, the unwounded azi carrying the pale and unmoving Paul between them, and Dimi taking up the rear, looking like he was in agony now that he was no longer on active duty. Goran shoved Rin's card into his hand before he left.

"You know he was going to snap my neck, right?" Gen said.

"Maybe he dreams of having his contract held by a supermarket owner," Goran said. "Your Sera March wouldn't ask him to snap anyone's neck, would she?"

"You haven't actually met her," Gen muttered.

Hugo came over as Rin came back from the front door complaining about the mess, and pulled Gen into an embrace.

"I thought they were really going to kill you," he said.

"Hey, I'm like a cockroach, practically immortal," Gen said, trying not to show how relieved he was. "When did you ring the Reseune offices? What did they say?"

"Gen," Hugo said, "I was _lying_. Surely you knew that? My whole self is a lie; why shouldn't I use it against them?"

Gen looked at Rin in suspicion. He shrugged and lit a cigarette, then offered one to Gen.

"I can pick up a hint when it's lobbed at me, Gen." He took a deep drag and started yelling. "Don't tell me they didn't follow you from your damn dead ass job! This was a good safe house and now it's useless! This case is a pile of shit! And stop hugging each other!"

"Just let him yell," Goran said. "I'll make some coffee. Oh. The pot's broken."

"I'm afraid I smashed it into one of those unfortunate men's faces," Hugo said. "The kettle should be over there somewhere." He indicated the far side of the room with his eyes, still holding tight to Gen.

"I'll work something out," Goran said, and started rummaging in the cupboards.

Rin finally shouted himself out once he saw that no one was listening, and accepted a cup of the gritty coffee that Goran had made in a saucepan. He drank it as Hugo went over his story, then lit another cigarette from the butt of his old one and pointed it in irritation at Gen and Hugo.

"You two are to stay put and this time I mean it. Beautiful Life is going to be shitting themselves over the thought of dealing with Reseune lawyers, and I'm going over there to let them know that while I despise them as a company, there are one or two people I still vaguely like as human beings. Which is a fucking lie, but they'll swallow it at the moment. I'm going to try to get them to delete anything to do with your design, Hugo, and maybe see if they can't beef up your CIT identity. They should be willing to do pretty much anything to get Reseune off their trail."

"Are they that bad?" Gen said.

Rin laughed, a short, dry sound. He definitely smoked too much.

"Hugo invoked one of the major devils, didn't you know? It's just a short step from Ser Nye to Satan Herself."

"I saw him being interviewed once," Hugo said. "He seemed very competent. So did his assistant – his name was clearly visible on his badge; Ser Tylor should pay better attention to inconsequential things like people's names."

"Huh," Rin said. He looked around at the wrecked room. "I'm putting the charge for cleaning this up on my bill."

"We're doing this pro bono," Goran said.

"I didn't say they'd be the ones paying."

He stood and lit a final cigarette. He peered into the pack and tossed it at Gen.

"Stay in, I'm serious. Goran will stay a while and help you fix the front door. Don't go to work tonight, or any night until I say it's safe."

"I'll definitely lose my job."

"So what? It's a shit job. Goran, keep him here."

"Sure, Kyr."

Rin strode out with the air of a man who wasn't going to be doing remedial carpentry. Goran grinned and tipped lukewarm coffee into Gen and Hugo's mugs. 

"He'll sort something out, you'll see. Do you want to play cards?"

"Why not?" Gen said.

"I'll go out later and pick up anything you need. More cigarettes, if you get through those, more food, and do you want condoms?"

Gen actually felt himself blush. It was infuriating.

"We, ah, haven't been using them," Hugo said, which was a bit too honest for Gen's liking.

"I'll schedule you both for a check-up," Goran said. He looked innocent at Gen's outrage. "What? You obviously need someone to look out for you."

"Great, a kid lawyer and a teacher and me in the middle," Gen muttered.

"I'm not a lawyer yet," Goran said. "But I will be once I've jumped through all the hoops the state says is necessary. You could be too."

Gen made a rude noise.

"Or you could stack shelves. It's up to you, really," Goran said. "You'd need someone willing to take you on to give you experience, and then vouch for you to take formal training." He drank the last of the coffee. "I never went to any school at all; my records show I had remedial education after receiving citizenship. And after I've served a legal apprenticeship, I'll be as ready for any higher level educational institute as anyone else. Tell him, Hugo. If some sort of experimental kid azi can do it, this guy can at least try."

"You should," Hugo said. "You don't belong in the supermarket, Gen."

"Yeah? It's convenient for my apartment. Unless you think I'm too good to live in that area."

"It's a pretty nice apartment for one guy," Goran said. "You should do it up."

"I'd need my brother's say-so."

"Maybe Ser Rin and Goran could teach you how to find him," Hugo said, which was low, very low.

"Did Rin even tell you to say any of this?" Gen said, and it sounded like a despairing last ditch attempt to him as well as to everyone else in the room he knew.

"He didn't tell me not to say it," Goran said smugly, and that, it seemed was that.

* * *

**Victory! A Step Closer to Ending the Producers of Misery!**

_The Genetics exploitation facility_ Beautiful Life _closed its doors for good last month, with its finances now being examined by the Bureau of Trade. All non-citizens resident in its facilities have been "transferred" to other exploiters' laboratories - in other words, sold. We call on those charged with wrapping up_ Beautiful Life _'s affairs to rectify this injustice and to free the non-citizen personnel immediately. Any patented genetic material in tanks judged by_ Beautiful Life _to be non-viable or without commercial value has been purged and destroyed, no matter the state of development. We mourn this course of action and call on the directors of_ Beautiful Life _to make a full and frank statement regarding the gene sets destroyed._

_This is only the first of the exploitation facilities to fall. The others cannot be far behind._

_Union will not long more tolerate the buying and selling of our fellow humans._

* * *

"What are you reading?" Gen said.

Hugo dropped the single sheet of brightly printed paper into the recycling. "It's just something about _Beautiful Life_ going bankrupt. There's nothing that Ser Rin hasn't told us. What's the first case today?"

"Goran said it's something about a guy being forced to become a citizen," Gen said. He balanced a dirty coffee mug on top of two others and grinned as Hugo glared and came and took them all off his desk. He still wasn't really used to having a desk, or a job that required him to be working during the day, even if it meant he and Hugo was squashed into a tiny room a third of the size of Rin and Goran's office. Rin paid a lot more than the supermarket, though, so it was pretty sweet.

At nine thirty precisely there was a knock on the door, and a worried-looking man peeped in.

"Ser Elin," Hugo said, "Please sit down."

"Thank you," he said, sitting nervously. "You don't have to call me that."

"Of course we do," Hugo said. "You're our client. How may we help you, Ser Elin?"

"I used to work for Elin Industrial Cleaners," he said, "I was one of the clerical staff. There needed to be cutbacks, things hadn't been going very well all year. Really what was needed was to stop the monthly drinks and dinner for the CIT workers, and the cars home for them all. Perhaps the company could have eased up on holiday celebrations, but Ser Elin said they had to have a big New Year's party like always, with gifts for the workers and their spouses and children. And new uniforms for all the azi staff. We couldn't afford it. 

One of Ser Elin's children said that the company could still fulfil its contracts with half the workers, and they'd no longer have the expense of housing and feeding them, or paying for rejuv for the higher classification azi. So they picked names from the list and told us to report for a medical procedure and gave us Final Tape." He looked down at his hands. "They said my rejuv is the state's responsibility now, not theirs. I'm not sure how to go about it."

"They kicked you out without warning?" Gen said.

Elin looked at him warily, and nodded. He didn't seem capable of saying anything else.

"You're representing all your fellow ex-employees?" Hugo said, and Elin turned to him in relief.

"Yes, ser. They asked me, seeing as I was on the clerical staff. Ex-employees. I suppose we are. I don't know what can be done – none of us wanted this, ser."

"Then why did you take their name?" Gen said, and Elin looked at him shyly again.

"Isn't that what we're supposed to do? I thought this might happen some future day, ser, not when I thought I was getting inoculated against some illness."

"You don't want to go back to work there as citizens, do you?" Hugo said.

"Some do," Elin said. "Some can't think of anything else. Some are really upset." He looked damn upset himself, Gen thought. "Some are even – angry, I'm sorry, ser." He wrung his hands together and took a deep breath. "I think the company should pay compensation for how it released us from service and should set us properly up as citizens, rather than placing us in a government hostel. I think that perhaps what the company did should be explained properly to the azi whose contracts it still holds and they should be given the chance to seek citizenship if they wish. I think at least one would."

"But if they're short on money," Gen said, "How are they going to pay for all of this?"

Elin looked at him, right in the face, like one pissed-off CIT looking at another. "I cared about that when I was still one of their azi," he said. "I find my loyalties have been shifted, ser. And if some of the family take proper salaries commensurate with their actual experience and the cut-backs effect CITS as well as azi, they can pay. I can remember every last detail of their finances, right up to the moment they called me away from my work." He sat up in his chair, back straight, face resolute. "Where would you like me to begin?"

Maybe there was a point in doing this stuff, Gen thought, as Hugo took notes and promised that they would investigate thoroughly. They'd help Elin and all these other decent people who'd been treated like shit just because of how they'd been born, and every day Hugo's CIT identity got firmer and he became more and more rehabilitated. And Elin and his friends were the sort of people who would look at them, and wouldn't give them shit if they knew how _they_ were born. For a moment he thought he heard a far-off ghost of a song from another room.

He leaned forwards and gave his client all the attention he deserved.


End file.
